The woman stepped aside, and Helen stepped into a hall, whose sole furnishing consisted of a rag rug on the floor and a cheap hall-tree with a cracked mirror. Evidently it was the chief wardrobe of the house, for upon the twenty or more nails driven into the walls in fairly regular order were articles of both men's and women's wear, most of them bearing evidence of contact with hard labor. From the hall, Helen was conducted into the "front room," the only name it was ever known by, which communicated with the dining room through a cased opening without portieres. These two rooms were about as barely furnished as possible under a minimum of necessary articles and quality. A threadbare ingrain carpet covered the floor of the front room. A few rag rugs hid probably some of the worst gaps in the matching of the yellow-pine floor of the dining room.