She was greatly interested in it, and her interest increased as it progressed towards the end, and loads of furniture came up from the freight house in foreign boxes, some from Rome and Florence and Paris and London. There were pictures and statuary and carpets and rugs and curtains and tables and chairs and bric-a-brac of every description, and two men came from Albany to see that they were properly placed. Connie, however, was the leading spirit, as the men at once recognized her delicate taste, and not only listened to her suggestions, but consulted her when she made none. Her special interest was centered in what was to be Mrs. Morris’ sitting-room and boudoir. Here her ideas were wholly carried out, and nothing could have been prettier than the general effect of rugs and hangings and pictures, when all was done and the rooms ready. “I feel as if in a nightmare,” she said to herself, as she sat alone for a few minutes in the boudoir, the day before Hal and his wife were expected. And this nightmare kept her awake the most of the night, so that it was rather a pale face which smiled upon Kenneth the next morning. “I did not sleep well, that’s a fact,” she said. “I must have been rather nervous about Mrs. Morris. I intend to like her immensely.” She was very busy all the morning, arranging and rearranging the rooms of the villa, and filling them with the flowers she had ordered from Rocky Point and Millville. It was June, the season of roses, and the house was full of them, their fragrance permeating every nook, and making Connie a little faint when she at last sat down to rest, while thoughts of Interlaken and the bowlder by the running brook came crowding into her mind, as they had not done since her talk with Kenneth by the ledge in the huckleberry pasture. “Once I thought to be happy like Kitty Haynes,” she said, and two great tears splashed down upon her hands. Then quickly recovering herself, she thought how glad she was to have a congenial companion, as she was sure Kitty would be. Of Harry she scarcely thought at all, except that Kenneth did not quite approve of him. Probably he was a little faster than Kenneth. He could scarcely have seen as much of the world as he had and not be. He was very handsome, Mrs. Stannard had said, and her description of him had reminded her of the bowlder among the Alps and the man who sat there with her. That man had vanished like a myth, and Harry Morris was coming that afternoon with his wife.