Within the house, the same spick and span, utterly impersonal attention to beauty prevailed. From basement to attic it was simply perfect in its appointments. As it might well be, since an artist in copper utensils had been let loose in the kitchen, the greatest authority in the world on wall papers had been allowed his will in friezes and dados; and so on from cellar to roof. There is, of course, a good deal to be said in favour of this modern specialism. It is distinctly comforting to know, that if you have not reached perfection, you have at any rate paid for it; but to some barbarians the loss of individuality in such houses is very grievous. To begin with, you lose a most delightful study of character. And after all, if Mrs. Jones has a sneaking admiration for a pea-green carpet with pink cabbage roses sprinkled over it, why, in heaven's name, should she conceal the fact? No green that ever was dyed is greener than grass, no flower that ever was woven is half as brilliant as the blossom-mosaic which Nature spreads for you to tread upon when the snow melts from the upland Alps. Yet the house was charming enough in detail if a little confusing _en masse_ to those sensitive to their surroundings; since the drawing-room was Queen Anne, the dining-room Tudor, and various other corridors and apartments Japanesque, Renaissance, Early English, or Pompeian. This again did not affect the inmates, who, indeed, would have scorned to feel as if time and space had been annihilated in the course of half-a-dozen steps; such fanciful imaginations being almost wicked, when time and space were distinctly necessary to the due performance of your duty in that state of life to which it had pleased Providence to call you. On this particular morning in July, Mr. and Mrs. Woodward and their daughter Alice were seated at the breakfast table in the usual comfortable indifferent silence of people who keep a diary of outside engagements in a conspicuous place on the writing-table, and whose inner lives move in decorous procession from morn till eve. A canary was singing joyfully, but at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the grey Persian cat which walked up and down rubbing itself, as it passed and repassed, against Mrs. Woodward's gown, with an anxious look on the bread and milk she was crumbling for it. Mr. Woodward, at the other side of a central palm tree, studied the share list. Miss Alice Woodward, who had evidently come down later than the others, was still engaged listlessly on toast and butter; finally making a remark in an undertone to her mother that as Jack had settled to ride with her in the Park at eleven, she supposed it was about time to get ready; a remark which resulted in her pushing away her plate languidly. "You have eaten no breakfast, my dear, and you are looking pale," said her mother, comfortably; "I will get you some more Blaud's from the Stores."