The pink room, when they entered it, seemed, to Esther’s unaccustomed eyes, almost as big as the Harniss Town Hall. A mammoth black walnut bedstead, its carved headboard reaching nearly to the ceiling; a correspondingly large marble-topped black walnut bureau; a marble-topped washstand with a pink and gold bowl, pitcher and soap dish upon it; a stiff little walnut desk; at least a half dozen walnut chairs, one of them a patent rocker. It was easy to see why it was called the “pink” room. The gorgeous flowers of the carpet had a pink background; the bedspread was pink; so were the heavy lambrequins above each of the four tall windows. The paper on the walls was of the prevailing color. Everything looked brand-new, every piece of furniture glistened with varnish. To the girl, at that first view, it seemed as if the only item in the room not new and grandly becoming, were her own shabby little trunk and the dingy canvas extension case awaiting her on the floor by the closet door. They looked pathetically out of place and not at home. Townsend gave the apartment a comprehensive glance. The inspection appeared to satisfy him. “Seems to be all right,” he observed. “Nabby and Ellen haven’t had much time to get things ready. I only told them an hour or so ago that you were coming. You can trust Nabby, though. Things are generally kept shipshape where she is.... There!” he added. “This is going to be your room, Esther. Like it, do you?” Esther nodded, bravely. “Yes, sir,” she said. “It is--is nice and--and big, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “Bigger than what you’ve been used to, I don’t doubt,” he agreed. “Well, it is yours from now on, so make yourself at home in it. There’s water in the pitcher over there, but if you had rather use the bathroom it is right at the end of the hall out here.” She thanked him. She had heard of that bathroom; so had every one else in Harniss. At the time of its installation it had been the only honest-to-goodness bathroom in the town. “I’ll leave you to your unpacking,” he said. “If you need any help or any thing just call Ellen. If you pull that tassel arrangement by the bed she’ll come; that’s part of her job. Well, good-by. I’ll be down in the library. Come down when you are ready.” She did not come down until almost supper time. He was sitting in the easy-chair when she entered. She had changed her dress and rearranged her hair and done her best to eradicate or at least conceal the tear stains about her eyes. He looked up from his paper, gave her an appraising glance which, or so she imagined, took her in from head to heel, and waved his big hand toward the rocker. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Well, you look as trim as a new tops’l. Get your things to rights upstairs? Find plenty of stowage room in the closet?” The closet was as big, almost, as her bedroom in the Clark cottage. “Oh, yes, indeed,” she said, smiling a little.