"Yes," retorted Alice, "according to your own confession more happens
with us in a week than happens with you in a year. And you might as well
acknowledge, at the same time, that there are a few houses in the Park
where the carpets are a little less than fifteen years old, and where
they don't have hideous old what-nots loaded down with all the stuff
accumulated since the year one."

She lifted the corner of a rug with her toe, so as to disclose the
threadbare breadth that it concealed, and she threw an ironical eye upon
a sort of massive and convoluted buffet which displayed a number of
antique Dresden figurines and a pair of old candelabra compounded of
tarnished gilt and broken prisms. "And in the Park," she added, "we
always have new wall-paper at the beginning of every century--it's a
local ordinance!"

"Alice," called her mother, tartly, "take your foot away from that rug.
And don't annoy me about that worn breadth; you know very well I've tried
everywhere to match it. And don't imagine, either, that I'm going to
bundle my wedding presents out of sight for you or anybody else."

"Match it!" cried Alice, unabashed. "Match it? They used the last to
carpet the ark." She trod down the corner of the rug with a firm step.
Then, with her scornful nostrils and sharply critical eyes, she seemed to
be lifting it again.

"Well, then," said her mother. "And now leave it alone." The old lady had
not the slightest idea of replacing her time-accustomed patterns by
anything more current. Nor was her husband, apparently, of a different
mind as concerned the wallpaper. He had followed Jane in from the other