and she brightened more when the spring breeze met her there.
Then all depression left her as she walked down the short brick
path to the sidewalk, looked up and down the street, and saw how
bravely the maple shade-trees, in spite of the black powder they
breathed, were flinging out their thousands of young green
particles overhead.

She turned north, treading the new little shadows on the pavement
briskly, and, having finished buttoning her gloves, swung down
her Malacca stick from under her arm to let it tap a more
leisurely accompaniment to her quick, short step. She had to
step quickly if she was to get anywhere; for the closeness of her
skirt, in spite of its little length, permitted no natural
stride; but she was pleased to be impeded, these brevities
forming part of her show of fashion.

Other pedestrians found them not without charm, though approval
may have been lacking here and there, and at the first crossing
Alice suffered what she might have accounted an actual injury,
had she allowed herself to be so sensitive. An elderly woman in
fussy black silk stood there, waiting for a streetcar; she was
all of a globular modelling, with a face patterned like a
frost-bitten peach; and that the approaching gracefulness was
uncongenial she naively made too evident. Her round, wan eyes
seemed roused to bitter life as they rose from the curved high
heels of the buckled slippers to the tight little skirt, and
thence with startled ferocity to the Malacca cane, which plainly
appeared to her as a decoration not more astounding than it was
insulting.