The furnishing of the Pacific Avenue house proceeded apace—­it was an eminently gratifying house to furnish, and Jim and Julia almost wished their labours not so light.  All rugs looked well on those beautiful floors; all pictures were at their best against the dull rich tones of the walls.  Did Mrs. Studdiford like the soft blue curtains in the library, or the dull gold, or the coffee-coloured tapestry?  Mrs. Studdiford, an exquisite little figure of indecision, in a great Elizabethan chair of carved black oak, didn’t really know; they were all so beautiful!  She wondered why the blue wouldn’t be lovely in the breakfast room, if they used the gold here?  Then she wouldn’t use the English cretonne in the breakfast room?  Oh, yes, of course, she had forgotten the English cretonne!

At last it was all done, from the two stained little Roman marble benches outside the front door, to the monogrammed sheets in the attic cedar closet.  The drawing-room had its grand piano, its great mahogany davenport facing the fire, its rich dark rugs, its subdued gleam of copper and crystal, dull blue china and bright enamel.  The little reception room was gay with yellow-gold silk and teakwood; Jim’s library was severely handsome with its dark leather chairs and rows of dark leather bindings.  A dozen guests could sit about the long oak table in the dining-room; the great sideboard with its black oak cupids and satyrs, and its enormous claw feet, struck perhaps the only pretentious note in the house.  A wide-lipped bowl, in clear yellow glass, held rosy pippins or sprawling purple grapes on the table in the window, the sideboard carried old jugs and flagons in blackened silver or dull pottery.

Upstairs the sunny perfection of the bedrooms was not marred by the need of so much as a cake of violet soap.  Julia revelled in details here:  flowers in the bedrooms must match the hangings; there must be so many fringed towels and so many plain, in each bathroom.  She amused as well as edified Jim with her sedate assurance in the matter of engaging maids; her cheeks would grow very pink when interviews were afoot, but she never lost her air of calm.

“We are as good as they are,” said Julia, “but how hard it is to remember it when you are talking to them!”

Presently Foo Ting was established supreme in the kitchen, Lizzie secured as waitress, and Ellie, Lizzie’s sister, engaged to do upstairs work.  Chadwick, Jim’s chauffeur, was accustomed occasionally to enact also the part of valet, so that it was with a real luxury of service that the young Studdifords settled down for the winter.