daughter and walked to the door.

"Now, for goodness' sake!" Alice cried. "Don't go making tragedy
out of my offering you a little practical advice!"

"I'm not," Mrs. Adams gulped, halting. "I'm just--just going to
dust the downstairs, Alice." And with her face still averted,
she went out into the little hallway, closing the door behind
her. A moment later she could be heard descending the stairs,
the sound of her footsteps carrying somehow an effect of
resignation.

Alice listened, sighed, and, breathing the words, "Oh, murder!"
turned to cheerier matters. She put on a little apple-green
turban with a dim gold band round it, and then, having shrouded
the turban in a white veil, which she kept pushed up above her
forehead, she got herself into a tan coat of soft cloth fashioned
with rakish severity. After that, having studied herself gravely
in a long glass, she took from one of the drawers of her
dressing-table a black leather card-case cornered in silver
filigree, but found it empty.

She opened another drawer wherein were two white pasteboard boxes
of cards, the one set showing simply "Miss Adams," the other
engraved in Gothic characters, "Miss Alys Tuttle Adams." The
latter belonged to Alice's "Alys" period--most girls go through
it; and Alice must have felt that she had graduated, for, after
frowning thoughtfully at the exhibit this morning, she took the
box with its contents, and let the white shower fall from her
fingers into the waste-basket beside her small desk. She