into
the little hallway, closing the door behind her. A moment later she
could be heard descending the stairs, the sound of her footsteps
carrying somehow an effect of resignation.

Alice listened, sighed, and, breathing the words, "Oh, murder!" turned
to cheerier matters. She put on a little apple-green turban with a dim
gold band round it, and then, having shrouded the turban in a white
veil, which she kept pushed up above her forehead, she got herself into
a tan coat of soft cloth fashioned with rakish severity. After that,
having studied herself gravely in a long glass, she took from one of
the drawers of her dressing-table a black leather card-case cornered in
silver filigree, but found it empty.

She opened another drawer wherein were two white pasteboard boxes of
cards, the one set showing simply "Miss Adams," the other engraved in
Gothic characters, "Miss Alys Tuttle Adams." The latter belonged to
Alice's "Alys" period--most girls go through it; and Alice must have
felt that she had graduated, for, after frowning thoughtfully at the
exhibit this morning, she took the box with its contents, and let the
white shower fall from her fingers into the waste-basket beside her
small desk. She replenished the card-case from the "Miss Adams"
box; then, having found a pair of fresh white gloves, she tucked an
ivory-topped Malacca walking-stick under her arm and set forth.

She went down the stairs, buttoning her gloves and still wearing
the frown with which she had put "Alys" finally out of her life. She
descended slowly, and paused on the lowest step, looking about her with
an expression that needed but a slight deepening to betoken bitterness.
Its connection with her dropping "Alys" forever was slight, however.

The small frame house, about fifteen years old, was already inclining
to become a new Colonial relic. The Adamses had built it, moving into it
from the "Queen Anne" house they had rented until they took this step in
fashion. But fifteen years is a long time to stand still in the midland
country, even for a house, and this one was lightly made, though the
Adamses had not realized how flimsily until they had lived in it for
some time. "Solid, compact, and convenient" were the instructions to the
architect, and he had made it compact successfully. Alice, pausing
at the foot of the stairway, was at the same time fairly in the
"living-room," for the only separation between the "living room" and the
hall was a demar