“I don’t mind. I’ll be home soon. Work hard and have your embroidery all done by the time I get there.”

And so Elsie was on her way out to her old home to get the book she had left there months before. In her heart she felt a secret shame, for she knew she had chosen this hour for going partly because her father and brothers would not be there.

She did not wish to encounter her father’s request again; there had been something hungry in his face, which she had not analyzed at the time, that had made her uncomfortable, disturbed the harmony of her life.

The book she was reading held her interest all the way out to the suburb where her old home was. The climax of her story was reached just as the conductor called out her street and she closed her book with a start and hurried out of the car, not even glancing from the window as she went.

She had little interest in the old place. She was only anxious to complete her errand and hurry away before anybody should return to detain her, for she had planned to go with Bettina and Katharine to the symphony concert that afternoon, and she wanted to get back before lunch.

The house was gray stone and shingle, and stood knee-deep in straggling grass and overgrown vines. It presented a startling neglected look in the bright sunlight as the girl walked up the gravel path. She frowned, and wondered why her brothers did not cut the lawn, train the vines, and clean the edges of the walk. It was disgraceful to let things go this way. She felt a thrill of thankfulness that she did not live in such a run-down home. What a contrast to Aunt Esther’s trim, comfortable house in the city!

She paused at the steps, and took note of several things that displeased her. One of the boards in the lower step was rotted away at one end, and the whole thing gave when her foot touched it. The paint was all off the porch and steps. Three old porch rockers in various stages of dejection stood about in position for the feet of a possible occupant to rest on the weather-beaten railing of the porch. The vines had clambered unchecked over floor and railing alike, adding to the general clutter. Three or four Sunday supplements were scattered about on the floor of the porch and several others matted like a cushion in an old bottomless rocker. Gathering her skirts about her daintily, the daughter of the house made her way disdainfully through the dismal approach and tried the front door. It was locked. She rang the bell several times, with no result. Then she stooped and lifted the old doormat. There was the key in its old place. It seemed to look at her with a pitiful appeal in its worn, rusty way. She picked it quickly from the accumulated dust and fitted it into the lock, a great distaste in her soul for the entrance she was about to make into the home of her childhood. She did not like to think that here had been her beginning of life.

She wondered as she threw the door open what had become of Rebecca? Inside the door she paused in dismay. Everything was dirt and disorder. Desolation came to meet her at the threshold.

The pleasant square hall that she remembered as a child mocked at her out of its ruin. The door of the hall closet stood open and hooks and floor bulged with their contents. Overcoats, a roll of carpet, two dilapidated raincoats, three old straw hats, and some felt ones, a stringless tennis racket, an old moth-eaten football suit, and a broken umbrella, all in a heterogeneous mass. The big wooden ball from the top of the newel post lolled in a corner amid rolls of dust. The little couch fairly groaned with more coats and hats.