next house, as Edith's grandiose phrase came to mind, "the old
Vertrees country mansion." It stood in a broad lawn which was
separated from the Sheridans' by a young hedge; and it was a big,
square, plain old box of a house with a giant salt-cellar atop for a
cupola. Paint had been spared for a long time, and no one could have
put a name to the color of it, but in spite of that the place had no
look of being out at heel, and the sward was as neatly trimmed as the
Sheridans' own.

The separating hedge ran almost beneath Bibbs's window--for this wing
of the New House extended here almost to the edge of the lot--and,
directly opposite the window, the Vertreeses' lawn had been graded so
as to make a little knoll upon which stood a small rustic "summer-
house." It was almost on a level with Bibbs's window and not thirty
feet away; and it was easy for him to imagine the present dynasty of
Vertreeses in grievous outcry when they had found this retreat ruined
by the juxtaposition of the parvenu intruder. Probably the "summer-
house" was pleasant and pretty in summer. It had the look of a place
wherein little girls had played for a generation or so with dolls
and "housekeeping," or where a lovely old lady might come to read
something dull on warm afternoons; but now in the thin light it was
desolate, the color of dust, and hung with haggard vines which had
lost their leaves.

Bibbs looked at it with grave sympathy, probably feeling some kinship
with anything so dismantled; then he turned to a cheval-glass beside
the window and paid himself the dubious tribute of a thorough
inspection. He looked the mirror up and down, slowly, repeatedly,
but came in the end to a long and earnest scrutiny of the face.
Throughout this cryptic seance his manner was profoundly impersonal;