The old-fashioned interior of the Polk House, with, on the lower floor, its double parlors connected by sliding doors, its narrow central hall, and its many shapeless rooms of varying size, had been entirely remodelled by the essentially modern Mrs. Hofer. Her husband had wished to build an imposing mass of shingles and stones, but Mrs. Hofer was far too impatient to wait a year-perhaps two, if there were strikes-to take up her abode on Nob Hill, and the Polk House was in the market. Perhaps something in the stolid uncompromising exterior of the old barrack appealed to her irresistibly, mausoleum that it was of an aristocratic past. But upon the interior she wasted no sentiment, and some half a million of her husband's dollars. There were now three great rooms on the lower floor and four s
