Then, too, she was pugnaciously loyal to the glories of the best parlor.

She was innocently glad that she had such a nice room into which to usher him.

She felt that the marble-top table, the plush lambrequin on the mantle-shelf, the gilded vases, the brass clock, the Nottingham lace curtains, the olive-and-crimson furniture, the pictures in cheap gilt frames, the heavily gilded wall-paper, and the throws of thin silk over the picture corners must prove to him the standing of her family.

She felt an ignoble satisfaction in it, for a certain measure of commonness clung to the girl like a cobweb.

She was as yet too young to bloom free of her environment, her head was not yet over the barrier of her daily lot; her heart never would be, and that was her glory.