arms were lifted. Her hands
lightly caught the molding on either side of the door. She was looking
intently into the mirror at the other end of the hall. All the lights in
the dining-room were lit, and she saw herself rather keenly set against
their brilliance. The straight-held head, the lifted arms, the short,
slender waist, the long, long sweep of her skirts made her seem taller
than she actually was; and the strong, bright growth of her hair and the
vivacity of her face made her seem more deeply colored.

She had poised there for the mere survey of a new gown, but after a
moment of dwelling on her own reflection she found herself considering
it only as an object in the foreground of a picture. That picture, seen
through the open door, reflected in the glass, was all of a bright, hard
glitter, all a high, harsh tone of newness. In its paneled oak, in its
glare of cut-glass and silver, in the shining vacant faces of its floors
and walls, there was not a color that filled the eye, not a shadow where
imagination could find play. As a background for herself it struck her
as incongruous. Like a child looking at the landscape upside down, she
felt herself in a foreign country. Yet it was hers. She turned about to
bring it into familiar association. There was nothing wrong with it. But
its great capacity suggested large parties rather than close intimacies.
In the high lift of its ceilings, the ample openings of its doors, the
swept, garnished, polished beauty of its cold surfaces, it proclaimed
itself conceived, created and decorated for large, fine functions. She
thought whimsically that any one who knew her, coming into her house,
would realize that some one other than herself had the ordering of it.

She glanced over the table. It was set for three. It lacked nothing but
the serving of dinner. She looked at the clock. It wanted a few minutes
to the hour. Shima, the Japanese butler, came in softly with the evening
papers. She took them from him. Nothing bored her so much as a paper,
but to-night she knew it contained something she really wanted to see.
She opened one of the damp sheets at the page of sales.

There it was at the head of the column in thick black type:

AT AUCTION, FEBRUARY 18
PERSONAL ESTATE OF
ELIZABETH HUNTER CHATWORTH
CONSISTING OF----

She read the details with interest down to the end, where the name of
the "famous Chatworth ring" finished the announcement with