replenished the card-case from the "Miss Adams" box; then, having
found a pair of fresh white gloves, she tucked an ivory-topped
Malacca walking-stick under her arm and set forth.

She went down the stairs, buttoning her gloves and still wearing
the frown with which she had put "Alys" finally out of her life.
She descended slowly, and paused on the lowest step, looking
about her with an expression that needed but a slight deepening
to betoken bitterness. Its connection with her dropping "Alys"
forever was slight, however.

The small frame house, about fifteen years old, was already
inclining to become a new Colonial relic. The Adamses had built
it, moving into it from the "Queen Anne" house they had rented
until they took this step in fashion. But fifteen years is a
long time to stand still in the midland country, even for a
house, and this one was lightly made, though the Adamses had not
realized how flimsily until they had lived in it for some time.
"Solid, compact, and convenient" were the instructions to the
architect, and he had made it compact successfully. Alice,
pausing at the foot of the stairway, was at the same time fairly
in the "living-room," for the only separation between the "living
room" and the hall was a demarcation suggested to willing
imaginations by a pair of wooden columns painted white. These
columns, pine under the paint, were bruised and chipped at the
base; one of them showed a crack that threatened to become a
split; the "hard-wood" floor had become uneven; and in a corner
the walls apparently failed of solidity, where the wall-paper had
declined to accompany some staggerings of the plaster beneath it.