sidewalk, while to the left there was a high board fence and an
entrance with a small grille open on a somber reach of garden. A
maid in a stiff white cap answered the fall of the knocker; she took
Linda's bag; and, in a hall that impressed her by its bareness,
Linda was greeted by the Miss Lowrie she had seen.

Her aunt was composed, but there was a perceptible flush on her
cheeks, and she said in a rapid voice, after a conventional welcome,
"You must meet Elouise at once, before you go up to your room."

Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, too, was slender and
erect, with black hair startling in its density on her wasted
countenance. Linda noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and
beautiful rose point lace. "It was good of you," the elder
proceeded, "to come and see two old women. I don't know whether we
have more to say or to keep still about. But I, for one, am going to
avoid explanations. You are here, a fool could see that you were
Bartram's girl, and that is enough for a Lowrie."

The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in place of the deep carpets
of the Feldts' the floor, of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed
and covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls were paneled
in white, with white ruffled curtains at small windows; and the
furniture, the dull mahogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the
rocking-chairs of high slatted walnut and rush bottoms, the slender
formality of tables with fluted legs, was dignified but austere.
There were some portraits in heavy old gilt--men with florid faces
and tied hair, and the delicate replicas of high-breasted women in
brocades.