The girl gazed about her dubiously; she would have liked to go in, except that she was certain it would be improper.  Helen had never had much respect for the proprieties, however, being accustomed to rely upon her own opinions of things; and in the present case, besides, she reflected that no one would ever know anything about it.

“We’d not have time to do more than glance around,” continued the other, “but we might do that, if you like.”

“Yes,” said Helen, after a moment more of hesitation, “I think I should.”

Her heart was beating very fast as the two ascended the great stone steps and as the door opened before them; her mind could not but be filled with the overwhelming thought that all that she saw might be hers if she really wanted it.  The mere imagining of Mr. Harrison’s wealth had been enough to make her thrill and burn, so it was to be expected that the actual presence of some of it would not fail of its effect.  It is to be observed that the great Temptation took place upon a high mountain, where the kingdoms of the earth could really be seen; and Helen as she gazed around had the further knowledge that the broad landscape and palatial house, which to her were almost too splendid to be real, were after all but a slight trifle to her companion.

The girl entered the great hallway, with its huge fireplace and its winding stairway, and then strolled through the parlors of the vast house; Helen had in all its fullness the woman’s passion for spending money for beautiful things, and it had been her chief woe in all her travels that the furniture and pictures and tapestry which she gazed at with such keen delight must be forever beyond her thoughts.  Just at present her fancy was turned loose and madly reveling in these memories, while always above her wildest flights was the intoxicating certainty that there was no reason why they should not all be possible.  She could not but recollect with a wondering smile that only yesterday she had been happy at the thought of arranging one dingy little parlor in her country parsonage, and had been trying to persuade her father to the extravagance of re-covering two chairs.

It would have been hard for Helen to keep her emotions from Mr. Harrison, and he must have guessed the reason why she was so flushed and excited.  They were standing just then in the center of the great dining-room, with its massive furniture of black mahogany, and she was saying that it ought to be papered in dark red, and was conjuring up the effect to herself.  “Something rich, you know, to set off the furniture,” she explained.

“And you must take that dreadful portrait from over the mantel,” she added, laughing. (It was a picture of a Revolutionary warrior, on horseback and in full uniform, the coloring looking like faded oilcloth.)

“I had thought of that myself,” said Mr. Harrison.  “It’s the founder of the Eversons; there’s a picture gallery in a hall back of here, with two whole rows of ancestors in it.”