"I hope Theodora will be nice," said Christina. "If she is, we may be happy."
"Do your best, Christina, to make all pleasant, and you will please me very much," said Robert. "And, Isabel, I am not leaving any of you. Marriage will not alter me in regard to my relationship to mother, yourself, and Christina. I promise you that."
"If you intend to make many alterations in the house, you will have to see about them at once," said Mrs. Campbell.
"To-morrow I shall send men to remove all the old furniture from the rooms I intend to decorate."
"To remove it! Where to?"
"To Bailey's auction rooms."
"Robert Campbell! Your poor, dear father's rooms, and he not gone two years yet!"
"To-morrow will be nine days short of the two years. Do you wish his rooms to remain untouched for nine days longer, mother?"
"It is no matter. Let his lounge, and his chair and his bagatelle board go—let all go! The dead, as well as the living, must make way for Theodora."
"And, mother, as the hall will be entirely changed, and there will be much traffic through it, you had better remove early in the morning those huge glass cases of impaled insects and butterflies. If you wish to keep them, take them to your rooms; if not, let them go to Bailey's."