THE Marceys' education began by Tom's mother leaving the goldfish at the house when she went away on a visit. She was a voluminous and stately lady, and try as she would, Alice could never link her up with Tom. It could never seem to her as if she was his mother. There was something about her vaguely Victorian. She belonged to another time and another way of looking at things, and her elegance was that of another generation. She lived alone on the top of a hill, and when she descended, her flowing draperies around her, she looked august as a Thackeray Dowager.
She had two mongrel dogs alleging to be terriers, which Alice had to feed in her absence. It was the second day after the elder Mrs. Marcey's departure, that Alice flew down the hill as though in the wake of disaster.
Usually she liked this walk. From her mother-in-law's big house you could see the whole wide valley spread out below you, through the chestnut trees. Alice knew half the people who lived in the houses she passed by; pleasant houses, they were, of a well-to-do New York suburb; houses with children in them, and with flowers growing in the little gardens; neat little houses, white with green blinds, set down in the midst of big trees, looking as if they had strolled in at random.
Sue Grayson, Alice's chum, called to her—"Come in for a minute, what are you in such a hurry about?"
"I've got to get back," said Alice, and hurried along.
