ight work on her little dialogues and fairy stories from
morning till night. The air of frightened apology which she wore--this
servile haste--pained and irritated him. He threw himself into a chair
and began mechanically to look over the mail which the postmaster had
handed him. A week ago he had written to an Eastern firm asking for a
catalogue of the refrigerators they made. Here it was--bulky,
imposing, abounding in alluring pictures of tile-lined refrigerators
filled with game, fish, fruit, wine. He found he could buy their
smallest and most inexpensive refrigerator, "built especially to supply
a demand for low-priced goods,"--so the advertisement ran--for
forty-five dollars. He dropped the book, and turned to his other letter.
It was from a great retail dry-goods house, and was in answer to a
request he had made for samples of dotted swiss--he had thought he would
like to get Gertrude a dress such as she had worn when he first knew
her. The samples were sent, and along with them a letter expressing
pleasure at being able to serve him, and a desire further to accommodate
him whenever possible; its extreme deference and respect was like a
calculated sarcasm. He pushed it away from him and leaned back in his
chair, looking about the room with a curious stare, as a convict, who
has just heard that his sentence is for life, might gaze at the walls of
his cell. It was a low-ceiled room, with an uneven floor, cheap
woodwork, painted in an unsuccessful imitation of natural wood, and
walls hung with faded paper of an indeterminate pattern and even more
indeterminate color. To-day it was in greater confusion than usual, with
white dust thick on table and chair, a window-shade askew, the
music-rack disarranged, and a plate of grape-skins which Allison had
left last night on the piano still standing there. But it was not the
disorder which irritated Allison most, nor the signs of poverty, but the
fact that the poverty was so _genteel_, so self-respecting, so
determined to make the best of things and present a brave front to the
world. The kerosene lamp had a shade of red, crinkled tissue-paper--the
cheap net curtains were arranged with the utmost elaboration--a rug was
artfully laid down in such a way as almost to cover the square of zinc
on which the stove stood in the winter time, and all of Gertrude's
photographs were placed with a view to concealing various defects and
deficiencies. His loathing for all this was intensified