There are houses that cannot be detached from their own people without protesting: every inch of mortar seems to mourn the separation, and such a house--no matter what be done to it--is ever murmurous with regret, whispering the old name sadly to itself unceasingly.

But the New House was of a kind to change hands without emotion.

In our swelling cities, great places of its type are useful as financial gauges of the business tides; rich families, one after another, take title and occupy such houses as fortunes rise and fall--they mark the high tide.

It was impossible to imagine a child's toy wagon left upon a walk or driveway of the New House, and yet it was--as Bibbs rightly called it--"beautiful." What the architect thought of the "Golfo di Napoli," which hung in its vast gold revel of rococo frame against the gray wood of the hall, is to be conjectured--perhaps he had not seen it.
"Edith, did you say only eleven feet ?" Bibbs panted, staring at it, as the white-jacketed twin of a Pullman porter helped him to get out of his overcoat.
"Eleven without the frame," she explained.

"It's splendid, don't you think?
It lightens things up so.