Then followed a period of absorbing and unremitting toil. All through the sweet June month the girls laboured at setting things in order in the new home. Expense being a matter of vital consequence, they endeavoured to do everything, within the limits of possibility, themselves. Workmen were of course needed for repairing the studio and fitting the kitchen fire-place, but their services were dispensed with in almost every other case. The furniture stored at the Pantechnicon proved more than enough for their present needs; Gertrude and Conny between them laid down the carpets and hung up the curtains; and Fred, revealing an unsuspected talent for carpentering, occupied his leisure moments in providing the household with an unlimited quantity of shelves. Indeed, the spectacle of that gorgeous youth hammering away in his shirt sleeves on a pair of steps, his immaculate hat and coat laid by, his gardenia languishing in some forgotten nook, was one not easily to be overlooked or forgotten. It was necessary, of course, to buy some additional stock-in-trade, and this Mr. Russel undertook to procure for them at the lowest possible rates; adding, on his own behalf, a large burnishing machine. The girls had hitherto been accustomed to have their prints rolled for them by the Stereoscopic Company. In their own rooms everything was of the simplest, but a more ambitious style of decoration was attempted in the studio. The objectionable Virginia cork and coloured glass of the little passage were disguised by various aesthetic devices; lanterns swung from the roof, and a framed photograph or two from Duerer and Botticelli, Watts and Burne-Jones, was mingled artfully with the specimens of their own work which adorned it as a matter of course. A little cheap Japanese china, and a few red-legged tables and chairs converted the waiting-room, as Phyllis said, into a perfect bower of art and culture; while Fred contributed so many rustic windows, stiles and canvas backgrounds to the studio, that his bankruptcy was declared on all sides to be imminent. Over the street-door was fixed a large black board, on which was painted in gold letters: G. & L. LORIMER: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO and in the doorway was displayed a showcase, whose most conspicuous feature was a cabinet portrait of Fred Devonshire, looking, with an air of mingled archness and shamefacedness, through one of his own elaborate lattices in Virginia cork. The Maryons surveyed these preparations from afar with a certain amused compassion, an incredulous kindliness, which were rather exasperating. Like most people of their class, they had seen too much of the ups and downs of life to be astonished at anything; and the sight of these ladies playing at photographers and house decorators, was only one more scene in the varied and curious drama of life which it was their lot to witness. "I wish," said Gertrude, one day, "that Mrs. Maryon were not such a pessimist."