d to decide even the most
insignificant details of the subject matter of their enthusiasm. As I
recall, in less than fifteen minutes' time after Alice had confided our
secret to Mrs. Denslow those two amiable and superior women had it
definitely settled what the color of the window shades was to be and
just how many brass-headed tacks would be required to fasten down the
new Japanese rug with which it was proposed to adorn the hardwood floor
of the library in the first story of "the addition" which had already
been determined upon. But Mrs. Denslow was no more prolific of lovely
suggestions than was Alice's widowed sister Adah, who has made her home
with us for the last two years. Adah's one o'ermastering ambition in
life has been to build a house. In the autumn of 1881 she saw in a
copy of "The National Architect" the picture and plans of a villa owned
by a plutocrat at Narragansett Pier. She preserved this paper as
sacredly as if it were one of the family archives, and upon the
slightest pretext she brought it forth and exhibited it and dilated in
extenso upon the surpassing advantages and beauties of the plutocratic
villa.

When Adah learned that Alice and I had actually bought a place at last
she fairly wept for joy, and she excitedly produced her creased and
worn copy of "The National Architect" and besought us to remodel the
old Schmittheimer "rookery"--that is what she dared to call it--into a
villa! And when she was made to understand by means of numerous long
and earnest representations that a villa could not even be dreamed of
by poor folk, Adah was prepared to compromise the affair upon a basis
involving our promise to build a colonial house like Maria's house in
St. Jo.

This Maria, whose name is forever upon Adah's tongue, had been Adah's
schoolmate back in St. Joseph, Missouri. Their friendship extended
through the blissful years of their early wedded life. And at the
present time they are as dear to each other as of yore. Adah
presupposes that everybody else knows who Maria is, and so everybody is
regaled perennially with Adah's loyal tributes to Maria's transcendent
virtues. Occasionally Alice (who is without doubt the sweetest-natured
creature in all the world) rebels against the example of Maria which
Adah continually holds forth.

I have an instance just at hand. It could not have been more than half
an hour ago that I heard Adah say: "Alice, do you know I 've been
thinking about it all