CHAPTER II
I
That winter and the following seasons for the next few years passed very
rapidly for Alexina. Besides her classes and the constant companionship of
her friends (to say nothing of the excitement of helping one or two of them
out of not infrequent scrapes), she had for a time the absorbing interest
of refurnishing the best part of her house.
The square lower hall which had been scantily furnished with the
grandfather's clock, a hat-rack, and a settee, and whose walls were covered
with "marble paper," was painted, walls and wood, a deep ivory white, and
refurnished with light wicker furniture, palms, and growing plants. The
hat-rack was abolished, and the small library on the left of the entrance
turned into a men's dressing-room. The folding doors were removed from the
great double parlors, the "body brussels" replaced by hardwood floors, the
walls tinted a pale gray as a background for the really valuable pictures
(including the proud and gracious and beautiful Alexina Ballinger, dust
long since in Lone Mountain), and the splendid pieces of Italian furniture
which had always seemed to sulk and bulge against the dull brown walls.
The rep and walnut sets were sent to the auction room and replaced by
comfortable chairs and sofas whose colors varied, but harmonized not only
with one another but with the rugs that Alexina under Gora's direction had
bought at auction.
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