which of the two pictures was the more dismaying.

Over the pictures, the vases, the old brown plush rocking-chairs and
the stool, over the three gilt chairs, over the new chintz-covered easy
chair and the gray velure sofa--over everything everywhere, was the
familiar coating of smoke grime. It had worked into every fibre of
the lace curtains, dingying them to an unpleasant gray; it lay on
the window-sills and it dimmed the glass panes; it covered the walls,
covered the ceiling, and was smeared darker and thicker in all corners.
Yet here was no fault of housewifery; the curse could not be lifted, as
the ingrained smudges permanent on the once white woodwork proved. The
grime was perpetually renewed; scrubbing only ground it in.

This particular ugliness was small part of Alice's discontent, for
though the coating grew a little deeper each year she was used to it.
Moreover, she knew that she was not likely to find anything better in
a thousand miles, so long as she kept to cities, and that none of
her friends, however opulent, had any advantage of her here. Indeed,
throughout all the great soft-coal country, people who consider
themselves comparatively poor may find this consolation: cleanliness has
been added to the virtues and beatitudes that money can not buy.

Alice brightened a little as she went forward to the front door, 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 stree