They set out together, Lois listening absently to Miss Deborah's chatter
about the wedding, and vaguely glad when, at the gate of her aunt's
house, she could leave her, with a pretty bow, which was half a courtesy.

There was a depressing stateliness about Dale house, which was felt as
soon as the stone gateway, with its frowning sphinxes, was passed. The
long shutters on either side of the front door were always solemnly
bowed, for Mrs. Dale did not approve of faded carpets, and the roof of
the veranda, supported by great white pillars, darkened the second-story
windows. There was no tangle of vines about its blank walls of
cream-colored brick with white trimmings, nor even trees to soften the
stare with which it surveyed the dusty highway; and the formal precision
of the place was unrelieved by flowers, except for a stiff design in
foliage plants on the perfectly kept lawn.

On the eastern side of the house, about the deep windows of Mr. Dale's
sanctum, ivy had been permitted to grow, and there were a few larch and
beech trees, and a hedge to hide the stables; but these were special
concessions to Mr. Dale.

"I do dislike," said Mrs. Dale,--"I do dislike untidy gardens; flowers,
and vines, and trees, all crowded together, and weeds too, if the truth's
told. I never could understand how the Woodhouse girls could endure that
forlorn old place of theirs. But then, a woman never does make a really
good manager unless she's married."

Lois found her aunt in the long parlor, playing Patience. She was sitting
in a straight-backed chair,--for Mrs. Dale scorned the weakness of a
rocking-chair,--before a spindle-legged table, covered with green baize
and with a cherry-wood rim inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. On it