There was no time for Mary to bring the rice from the kitchen table, but Ellen had sequestered one of Adelaide's old dancing slippers under the front stair.

She contrived to get it out and into action, and to land it full in Adelaide's lap by a lucky carom against the upright of the coach window.
Adelaide looked down at it vaguely.

It was one of a pair of slippers she had got for the biggest and most fashionable ball she had ever attended.
She remembered it all--the gorgeousness of the rooms, the flowers, the dresses, the favors, her own ecstasy in being where it was supposed to be so difficult to get; how her happiness had been marred in the early part of the evening by Ross's attendance on Helen Galloway in whose honor the ball was given; how he made her happy again by staying beside her the whole latter part of the evening, he and more young men than any other girl had.

And here was the slipper, with its handsome buckle torn off, stained, out of shape from having been so long cast aside.

Where did it come from?
How did it get here?
Why had this ghost suddenly appeared to her?
On the opposite seat, beside her traveling case, fashionable, obviously expensive, with her initials in gold, was a bag marked "T.H."-- of an unfashionable appearance, obviously inexpensive, painfully new.