It was a great relief to Constance when at last she was once more self-supporting. Her eyes appeared to be as strong as ever, and she found her new work congenial and absorbing. She was not merely Mrs. Wilson's stenographer, but her factotum, expected to exercise a general superintendence over her employer's philanthropic and social concerns, to attend to details, and, through tactful personal interviews, to act as a domestic buffer. The change from the practical severity of a law office, with its dusty shelves of volumes uniformly bound in sheep, its plain furniture and heterogeneous clientage, to her present surroundings was both stimulating and startling. Stimulating because it catered to her yearning for contact with æsthetic influences to have the run of this superb house and to be brought into daily familiar association with all sorts of lavish expenditure in aid of beautiful effects and beneficent purposes. Startling because the true quality of the luxury aimed at was unknown to her until she became a constant eye-witness. In both Mrs. Wilson's and her brother Carleton Howard's establishments a major-domo presided over the purely domestic relations, engaging the numerous servants, and endeavoring to maintain such a competent staff below stairs as to ensure delicious, superabundant food and neat, noiseless service which should emulate as far as possible the automatic impersonality of male and female graven images. All the appointments of the house were captivating; the pantry closets bristled with beautiful cut glass and delicate, superbly decorated china; flowers in great profusion and variety were brought three times a week from Carleton Howard's private nurseries to be tastefully arranged by a maid whose special duty it was to attend to this and to see that those not needed for the decoration of the house should be sent to the destinations indicated by Mrs. Wilson through her secretary--hospitals, friends in affliction or with birthdays, and the like. The spacious bathrooms were lined with artistic tiles; electric lights had been adjusted in the chambers so as to provide perfect facilities for reading in bed; once a week an attendant called to wind all the clocks in the house. Mrs. Wilson's personal appetite was not keen, yet exacting. Her breakfast was served in her own room, and, unless she had company, her other meals were apt to be slight in substance, but were invariably of a delicate, distinguished character as regards appearance if not ingredients. Her steward had instructions that the dinner table should be garnished with flowers and the most luscious specimens of the fruits of the season, though she were alone. When she had guests these effects were amplified, and her mind was constantly on the alert to provide novelty for her entertainments. During the first season of Constance's employment, music between the courses--a harpist, a quartette of violinists, an orchestra--happened