When she was alone, Katherine Bush made herself take in every detail. Lady Garribardine had suggested that she was observant; she must remember that and always cultivate this faculty, for she realised that every trifling thing would be different from anything she had ever known. She liked the space of the place, she would not feel that she was tumbling over things. There was an empty bookcase awaiting her books, no doubt, and a big sensible writing-table there in the window where there would be plenty of light. The wardrobe was a monster, ample room in it for any amount of clothes! How pleasant not to have to put most things away in cardboard boxes under one's bed--often to find them discoloured by dust when taking them out again! And how pretty and quaint was the china on the washstand, matching the chintz. And the towels! Of finer quality--and nearly as many as there had been at the Palatial in Paris, which she had supposed was a case of French hotel extravagance and not what would be the custom in private life. She fingered them softly. They were arranged peculiarly, too, with the top fold turned back so that one could pick them up in a second. Katherine Bush smiled cynically when she remembered her two coarse huckabacks, changed only every Saturday at Laburnum Villa! Everything gave the impression of spotless cleanliness and order. The brass hot-water can and the fender and the fire-irons all shone with superlative polishing. Presently her tea was brought up by a housemaid in neatest black, with a cap and apron which would have made Em'ly snort with indignation had she been asked to wear them, so unmodish was their style! It was a joy to have a perfectly arranged tea-tray with shining silver and pretty porcelain, a tray all to herself, too, instead of a breakfast cup already poured out and mixed with milk and sugar, and probably a little of the contents upset into the saucer, which also contained a thick slice of bread and butter and a piece of cake! This is what she had always been accustomed to at the office, or on Saturday afternoons at home, while she read her books and a sister brought her tea up to her attic. And with the exceptions of a Lyons or an A. B. C. restaurant, and the brief time of glory in Paris, when chocolate was the order of the day, this one unappetizing cup had represented to her what many women look forward to as the most delightful meal of all. The housemaid's manner had been quiet and respectful, as she drew the curtains and shut out the dying light, the muffin was done to a turn, and, above all, the tea tasted as tea had never tasted before. She was too ignorant as yet to know that it was China, not the rankest Ceylon which she was accustomed to, but she found it particularly nice, though rather weak. The whole room and the service and the atmosphere spoke of inhabitants who, somehow she knew, belonged to the same class as those whose voices she had always admired from beyond the half-high glass screen.