t which could have weathered extremes. Now her
faculties seemed to give a leap; she was afraid, but there was
distinct rapture in her fear. She had not been so actively happy
since she was a child and had been left at home with the measles one
Sunday when the rest of the family had gone to church, and she had
run away and gone wading in the brook, at the imminent risk not only
of condign punishment, but of the measles striking in. She felt now
just as then, as if something terrible and mysterious were striking
in, and she fairly smacked her soul over it.

Mrs. Lee no longer shrank; she stood up straight; she also thrust her
chin forward; her nose sharpened, her blue eyes contracted under her
light brows. She even forgot her role of obligation, and did not give
Mrs. Van Dorn the precedence; she actually pushed before her. Mrs.
Van Dorn had closed the front door very softly, and they stood in a
long, narrow hall, with an obsolete tapestry carpet, and
large-figured gold and white paper revealing its gleaming scrolls in
stray patches of light. Mrs. Lee went close to an old-fashioned
black-walnut hat-tree, the one article of furniture besides a chair
in the hall.

"Was this theirs?" she whispered to Mrs. Van Dorn.

Mrs. Van Dorn nodded.

Mrs. Lee deliberately removed the nice white kid glove from her right
hand, and extending one small taper forefinger, rubbed it over the
surface of the black-walnut tree; then she pointed meaningly at the
piece of furniture, which plainly, even in the half-light, disclosed
an unhousewifely streak. She also showed the dusty forefinger to the
other lady, and they both nodded with intense enjoyment.

Then Mrs. Lee folded her silk skirts tightly around her and lifted
them high above her starched white petticoat lest she contaminate
them in such an untidy house; Mrs. Van Dorn followed her example, and
they tiptoed into the double parlors. They were furnished, for the
most part, with the pieces dating back to the building of the house,
in one of the ugliest eras of the country, both in architecture and
furniture. The ceilings in these rather small square rooms were so
lofty that one was giddy with staring at the elaborate cornices and
the plaster centrepieces. The mantels were all of massively carved
marble, the windows were few and narrow, the doors multitudinous, and
lofty enough for giants. The parlor floor was carpeted with tapestry
in enormous designs of crimson roses, in deliriums of a