And with her face still averted, she went out into the
little hallway, dosing the door behind her. A mo-
ment 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 Turtle 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

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