While Alice stood before the mirror in one of the sumptuously furnished rooms assigned them, arranging a ribbon for the effect upon Dan's mother after dinner, and regarding its relation to her serious beauty, Mrs. Pasmer came out of her chamber adjoining, and began to inspect the formal splendour of the place. “What a perfect man's house!” she said, peering about. “You can see that everything has been done to order. They have their own taste; they're artistic enough for that--or the father is--and they've given orders to have things done so and so, and the New York upholsterer has come up and taken the measure of the rooms and done it. But it isn't like New York, and it isn't individual. The whole house is just like those girls' tailor-made costumes in character. They were made in New York, but they don't wear them with the New York style; there's no more atmosphere about them than if they were young men dressed up. There isn't a thing lacking in the house here; there's an awful completeness; but even the ornaments seem laid on, like the hot and cold water. I never saw a handsomer, more uninviting room than that drawing room. I suppose the etching will come some time after supper. What do you think of it all, Alice?” “Oh, I don't know. They must be very rich,” said the girl indifferently. “You can't tell. Country people of a certain kind are apt to put everything on their backs and their walls and floors. Of course such a house here doesn't mean what it would in town.” She examined the texture of the carpet more critically, and the curtains; she had no shame about a curiosity that made her daughter shrink. “Don't, mamma!” pleaded the girl. “What if they should come?” “They won't come,” said Mrs. Pasmer; and her notice being called to Alice, she made her take off the ribbon. “You're better without it.” “I'm so nervous I don't know what I'm doing,” said Alice, removing it, with a whimper. “Well, I can't have you breaking down!” cried her mother warningly: she really wished to shake her, as a culmination of her own conflicting emotions. “Alice, stop this instant! Stop it, I say!” “But if I don't like her?” whimpered Alice. “You're not going to marry her. Now stop! Here, bathe your eyes; they're all red. Though I don't know that it matters. Yes, they'll expect you to have been crying,” said Mrs. Pasmer, seeing the situation more and more clearly. “It's perfectly natural.” But she took some cologne on a handkerchief, and recomposed Alice's countenance for her. “There, the colour becomes you, and I never saw your eyes look so bright.” There was a pathos in their brilliancy which of course betrayed her to the Mavering girls. It softened Eunice, and encouraged Minnie, who had been a little afraid of the Pasmers. They both kissed Alice with sisterly affection. Their father merely saw how handsome she looked, and Dan's heart seemed to melt in his breast with tenderness.