y, frame
boarding-houses, small groceries and drug-stores, laundries and one-room
plumbers' shops, with the sign of a clairvoyant here and there.

"You see?" she said. "I've been leading you without your knowing it. Of
course that's because you're new to the town, and you give yourself up
to the guidance of an old citizen."

"I'm not so sure, Miss Adams. It might mean that I don't care where I
follow so long as I follow you."

"Very well," she said. "I'd like you to keep on following me at least
long enough for me to show you that there's something nicer ahead of us
than this dingy street."

"Is that figurative?" he asked.

"Might be!" she returned, gaily. "There's a pretty little park at the
end, but it's very proletarian, and nobody you and I know will be more
likely to see us there than on this street."

"What an imagination you have!" he exclaimed. "You turn our proper
little walk into a Parisian adventure."

She looked at him in what seemed to be a momentary grave puzzlement.
"Perhaps you feel that a Parisian adventure mightn't please your--your
relatives?"

"Why, no," he returned. "You seem to think of them oftener than I do."

This appeared to amuse Alice, or at least to please her, for she
laughed. "Then I can afford to quit thinking of them, I suppose. It's
only that I used to be quite a friend of Mildred's--but there! we
needn't to go into that. I've never been a friend of Henrietta Lamb's,
though, and I almost wish she weren't taking such pains to be a friend
of yours."

"Oh, but she's not. It's all on account of----"

"On Mildred's account," Alice finished this for him, coolly. "Yes, of
course."

"It's on account of the two families," he was at pains to explain, a
little awkwardly. "It's because I'm a relative of the Palmers, and the
Palmers and the Lambs seem to be old family friends."

"Something the Adamses certainly are not," Alice said. "Not with either
of 'em; particularly not with the Lambs!" And here, scarce aware of what
impelled her, she returned to her former elaborations and colourings.
"You see, the differences between Henrietta and me aren't entirely
personal: I couldn't go to her house even if I liked her. The Lambs and
Adamses don't get on with each other, and we've just about come to the
breaking-point as it happens."

"I hope it's nothing to bother you."

"Why? A lot of things bother me."

"I'm sorry they do," he said, and seemed simply to mean it.

She nodded gratefu