In the heart of Bellville was situated the business house of Bangs, Smith & Taylor, built at the corner of a street, it faced two ways, the office and its doors being on L street, the principal street of the town. There was also a dwelling-house on M street, a new short street not much frequented. There were eight or ten houses on this street all owned by the Taylors, and this street led to the open country and to a carriage way that would take you to the Taylor mansion. It was in one of these houses that Charles Taylor had concluded to live after his marriage with Janey Brewster, as it was near his business and he wanted his sisters to live there with him as it was their mother’s last request that they keep together, but up to the present time he had never talked the matter over with them. This house attached to the office was a commodious one, its rooms were mostly large and handsome and many in number, a pillared entrance to which you ascended by steps took you into a large hall, on the right of this hall was a room used for a dining-room, a light and spacious apartment, its large window opening on a covered terrace where plants could be kept and that again standing open to a sloping lawn surrounded with shrubs and flowers. On the left of the hall was a kitchen, pantries and such like, at the back of the hall beyond the dining-room a handsome staircase led to the apartments, one of which was a fine drawing-room. From the upper windows at the back of the house a full view of the Taylor mansion might be obtained, rising high and picturesque, also the steeple of a cathedral gray and grim, not of the cathedral itself, its surrounding trees concealed that.