The Pomona, on West ---- Street, was well known among those swell apartment houses of Manhattan which find it profitable to cater to the liberal-spending demi-monde, and therefore are not prone to be too fastidious regarding the morals of their tenants. Many such hostelries were scattered throughout the theatre district of New York, and as a rule they prospered exceedingly well. Invariably they were of the same type. There was the same monotonous sameness in the gaudy decorations and furnishings; the same hilarious crowd in the cafe downstairs; the same overdressed, over-rouged women in the elevator and halls. They enjoyed in common the same class of patronage--blonde ladies with lengthy visiting-lists of gentlemen callers. Willard Brockton occupied a suite on the sixth floor, and it was one of the handsomest and most expensive in the hotel. It consisted of ten large rooms and three baths. The large sitting-room in white and gold had two windows overlooking fashionable Fifth Avenue. The furnishings were expensive and rich, but lacked that good taste which would naturally obtain in rooms occupied by people a little more particular concerning their reputation and mode of life. At one end of the room a large archway hung with tapestries led to the sleeping chambers. At the other end a door opened onto a small private hall, which, in turn, had another door communicating with the main corridor. The apartment was expensively and elaborately furnished. The inlaid floors were strewn with handsome Oriental rugs, the chairs and sofas were heavy gilt, upholstered in crimson silk, while here and there were Louis XV writing desks, teakwood curio cabinets, costly bronzes and statuary. The walls were covered with valuable paintings and engravings. Near the window stood a superb full-length Empire cheval glass, the kind that women love to dress by and survey their beauty. Two months had sped quickly by since that cold, stormy day in February, when Laura, distracted, half-starved, her spirit broken, despairing of aid from Madison or any other decent quarter, threatened with eviction even from Mrs. Farley's miserable lodgings, weakly surrendered, listened to the call which summoned her back to her former life, and once more became Brockton's mistress.