pncolor">29 that girl has her maid, the most wonderful jewellery you ever saw, two automobiles of her own and a saddle horse, and her father owns the best apartment house in town, and Beatrice is going to have the best apartment in it when she marries Steve. And you can just bet she knew she was going to marry him a long time ago––because she knew he’d rob the Bank of England to get a fortune. She’s flirted with everyone from an English nobleman to the Prince of Siam, and now she’s marrying the handsomest, brightest, most devoted cave man in the world.” Trudy glanced at Mary. “Yet she doesn’t really care for him, she just wants to be married before she is considered passée.” Trudy was very proud of her occasional French. “She’ll be twenty-six her next birthday!”

“Dear me, girls take their time these days; I was eighteen the day Mr. Faithful led me to the altar.”

“When are you going to get married?” Luke asked Trudy with malice aforethought.

“Oh, I’ll give Mary a chance. She don’t want to dance in the pig trough.”

Mary laid down the paper. “I wish you people would finish eating. Luke, are you going fishing with me out at the old mill? Then you better get the walks swept. We’ll be home in time for dinner, mother. I’ll leave the things as nearly ready as I can. How about you, Trudy?”

“Gay wants me to go to the Boulevard Café––they dance on Sunday just the same as weekdays––and then we’ll do a movie afterward. I suppose Steve and his Beatrice are now revelling in the Constantine conservatory, with Steve walking on all fours to prove his devotion. Why is it some girls have everything? Look at me––no one cares if I live or 30 die. First I had a stepmother, and then I tried living with a great-aunt, and then I went to work. Here I am still working, and a lot of thanks I get for it. I’d like to see the Gorgeous Girl have to work––well, I would!”

Mary brushed by with some dishes. Whereupon Trudy settled herself in an easy-chair and ran through the supplement sections, discussing the latest New York scandal with Mrs. Faithful. The next thing on Trudy’s Sunday program was washing out “just a few little things, Mary dear; and have you a bit of soap I could borrow and may I use the electric iron for half a jiffy?”

Presently there were hung on the line some dabs of chiffon and lace, and Trudy, taking advantage of her softened cuticle, sat down and did her nails, Mrs. Faithful admiring the high polish she achieved and reading Advice to the Anxious aloud for general edification.

After ironing the few little things Trudy shampooed her hair with scented soap and by the time its reddish loveliness was dry it was high noon and she repaired to her bedroom to mend and write letters. At one o’clock, in the process of dressing, she rapped at Mary’s door and asked to borrow a quarter.

“I’m terribly poor this week and if I should have a quarrel with Gay I want to have enough carfare to come home alone––you know how we scrap,” she explained.

About two o’clock there emerged from the front bedroom an excellent imitation of the Gorgeous Girl. Trudy had not exaggerated when she boasted of her own style. Though patronizing credit houses exclusively and possessing not a single woollen garment nor 31 a penny of savings, she tripped down the stairs in answer to Luke’s summons, a fearful, wonderful little person in a gown of fog-coloured chiffon with a violet sash and a great many trimmings of blue crystal beads. She boasted of a large black hat which seemed a combination of a Spanish scarf and a South Sea pirate’s pet headgear, since it had red coral earrings hanging at either side of it. Over her shoulders was a luxurious feline pelt masquerading comfortably under the title of spotted fox. White kid boots, white kid gloves, a silver vanity case, and a red satin rose at her waist completed the costume.

Standing in the offing, about to decamp with Mary, Luke gave a low whistle to tip her off to look out the window and not miss it. Mrs. Faithful was peeking from behind the starched window curtains as there glided before her eyes the most elegant young woman and impressive young man ever earning fifteen dollars and no dollars a week respectively.

“How do they do it?” Mary sighed. “Come, Luke, let’s get on the trail of something green and real.”

A few moments later there hurried along the same pathway a tall young woman in an old tailored suit which impressed one with the wearer’s plainness. Instead of a silver vanity case she was laden with a basket of newspapers, string, and a garden trowel, indicating that fern roots would be the vogue shortly. Shouldering fishing tackle Luke turned his freckled face toward Mary as they began a conversation, and his perpetual grin was momentarily replaced by an expression of respect. At least his sister was not like the average woman, who depends solely on her clothes to make her interesting.

Meantime, Trudy and Gaylord Vondeplosshe were 32 beginning their Sunday outing by walking to the corner in silence––the usual preliminary to a dispute. Gaylord was quite Trudy’s equal as to clothes, not only in style but in forgetfulness to pay for them. Still, he was not unusual after one fully comprehended the type, for they flourished like mushrooms. His had been a rich and powerful family––only-the-father-drank-you-see variety––the sort taking the fastest and most expensive steamer to Europe and bringing shame upon the name of American traveller after arriving. Gaylord had been the adored and only son, and his adored and older sister had managed to marry fairly well before the crash came and debts surrounded the entire Vondeplosshe estate.

He was small and frail, a trifle bow-legged to be exact, with pale and perpetually weeping eyes, a crooked little nose with an incipient moustache doing its best to hide a thick upper lip. His forehead sloped back like a cat’s, and his scanty, sandy hair was brushed into a shining pompadour, while white eyelashes gave an uncanny expression to his face. Abortive lumps of flesh stuck on at careless intervals sufficed for ears, and his scrawny neck with its absurdly correct collar and wild necktie seemed like an old, old man’s when he dresses for his golden-wedding anniversary. Everything about Gaylord seemed old, exhausted, quite ineffectual. His mother had never tired boasting that Gaylord had had mumps, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, St. Vitus dance, double pneumonia, and typhoid, had broken three ribs, his left arm, his right leg, and his nose––all before reaching the age of sixteen. And yet she raised him!

Coupled with this and the fact of his father’s failure people were lenient to him.