LITMIR.BIZ

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which could deceive no one, not at least, so shrewd an observer as Annabel.

      At nineteen she had married a man more than twice her age. Since then her preference for youthfulness had been growing, a phenomenon not unusual in women of her type. At thirty-seven, she looked upon her husband as senile, patriarchal, as far removed from her generation as the Pilgrim fathers. Men of her own age bored her. They were interested in business, politics, their families, a thousand things besides herself. They had lost the obsession of personality, the you-and-I attitude which is the life-blood of flirtation.

      Just now Annabel preferred boys still young enough to be secretly proud of the necessity of shaving every other day, young enough to swagger a little when they lighted a cigarette. At her present rate of progress, by the time she was fifty, she would have come by successive gradations to the level of short trousers and turn-over collars.

      The average worshiper may hurry over his prayers, but the devotee of vanity must not make haste with her toilet. It was quarter of eleven when Annabel was dressed, but since the results were satisfactory, she was untroubled over her lack of punctuality. It was Diantha who fidgeted, and looked at the clock.

      "You're 'most an hour behind time. You'd better hurry if you don't want Miss Persis to scold."

      "I shan't hurry for any one," Annabel returned, selecting after due deliberation the parasol with the pink lining. Her husband was lounging on the porch as she went out, and he greeted her with his usual, "Good morning, my dear," his gaze following her with the gently satiric smile which always made her feverishly impatient to consult the little mirror she carried in her hand-bag. That smile hinted at extraordinary insight and unnerved her as his frenzied outbursts of anger had never done. She had lost her power to hurt him except in the way of humiliation, but he cynically argued that the constant amusement she afforded him almost paid this last indebtedness. It was like having a season ticket to a theater.

      Persis Dale was fitting young Mrs. Thompson, the traveling man's wife, when Annabel made her appearance. She nodded, glad that the half dozen pins held loosely between her lips, relieved her from the obligation of a welcoming smile.

      "Maybe you'd like to set on the porch, Mis' Sinclair, till I'm at liberty. Your hour was ten, you know. It's shady out there and you can look over the new books. And now, Mis' Thompson, before I go any further we've got to decide whether it's to open in the front or in the back."

      "I think the buttons down the back are more stylish," said young Mrs.

       Thompson.

      "There's no doubt of that," Persis agreed. "Everything in the book is back. But there's always more'n one way to skin a cat. I could put a row of hooks under the lace, around this side of the yoke, and nobody'd ever know where it was fastened, or whether you were just run into it."

      Young Mrs. Thompson hesitated, studying herself in the mirror. Persis employed several pins in tightening a seam and expressed her views at some length.

      "It's just this way, Mis' Thompson. If you had a nice little girl, big enough to stand on a chair and fasten you up the back, I wouldn't say a word against it. But of all things that rack your nerves and spoil your temper, twisting and squirming and trying to reach three or four buttons, first from above and then from below, is certainly the limit. And putting a shawl over your shoulders on a hot day and going to find some neighbor to do it for you, ain't a great deal better."

      "But this is going to be my Sunday dress," said the six-months bride, whose color had increased appreciably during the course of Persis' remarks. "And Will is always home for Sunday."

      "Well, if you feel like taking the risk, Mis' Thompson, I haven't a word to say. But when a man's home for a Sunday rest, he generally wants a rest, and dresses that button up the back don't seem to fit in with the idea. Human nature can't stand only just so much and man nature considerable less."

      An undecided murmur escaped the lips of young Mrs. Thompson.

      "I had a customer," continued Persis, recklessly filling her mouth with pins, "who gave up a good position as cashier in a city glove store, to keep house for her brother when his wife died. She was always telling me how grateful he was. Seemed like he couldn't do enough for her. She used to say it 'most made her uncomfortable to see that man racking his brains to find some way of showing her how he appreciated what she'd done for him. Please walk to the end of the room, Mis' Thompson, slow and graceful, till I see how that skirt hangs. Just a trifle long on the seam. I thought so.

      "Well, I made her a princess dress; gray it was and very stylish. It hooked down the back, and then there was a drapery effect that hooked up the side and across the shoulder. I wouldn't dare say how many cards of hooks and eyes I used on that dress. I did ask her once how she'd get into it, and she said that her brother, what with having been married and all, was as handy as a woman at such things.

      "I sent it home of a Saturday, and I didn't see her for two weeks. Then she brought it in and she was crying. She wanted me to fix it some way so that she could get into it by herself. Easier said than done, you can believe. She'd worn it twice, and both times they'd had words, and some of 'em were swear words, too. Well, I did the best I could by the dress, but it was too late to save the day. You see she'd taken such comfort in thinking how grateful he was, that she hadn't minded what she'd given up herself, but after that, things was different. She went back to the city in less than a year. I think she's a cashier in some restaurant. She couldn't get her old place in the glove store."

      Young Mrs. Thompson had a bright idea. "Couldn't you put a row of buttons down the back, just for looks, and then hook it under the lace, same as you said?"

      "Easiest thing in the world," Persis assured her. The domestic peace of the Thompson family was preserved for the time being, though neither woman guessed for how brief a period.

      Annabel Sinclair was thoroughly out of temper when the time for her fitting came, though she paid Persis the compliment of making a whole-hearted effort to conceal her feelings. Persis Dale was one of the few of whom Annabel stood in awe. Behind her back she frequently referred to the dressmaker as an "interfering old maid," but in Persis' presence she paid reluctant tribute to the dominating personality. When very angry, Annabel indulged in whatever brutalities of plain speech were suggested by a somewhat limited imagination, but her habitual weapon was innuendo. She shrank from Persis' bluntness as a dog cringes away from a whip.

      When young Mrs. Thompson had hurried off to the brand-new cottage on

       the hill, Annabel concealed her annoyance under a smile, inquired after

       Joel's health and yielded to Persis' opinion with flattering deference.

       But Persis' mood was not merciful.

      "How your Diantha is growing, Mis' Sinclair. She must have left you way behind before this."

      Annabel winced. She had long been in the habit of referring to Diantha as "my little girl." Of late she had fancied that her listeners looked amused at her choice of a qualifying adjective.

      "It's such a pity," she answered in her softest voice, "for a child to grow that way. People expect so much more of tall children."

      "Well, girls often get their growth by the time they're Diantha's age.

       Let's see. She must be six—"

      "I believe that seam twists," Annabel exclaimed. She chose her criticism at random with the sole purpose of distracting Persis' attention before the obnoxious word should be spoken. Yet it was true that she had been married eighteen years. In another seven she would be able to celebrate her silver wedding, an anniversary she had always associated with old age. The horror of the situation was not lessened by its grotesqueness.

      "The worst of it is that everybody in this dreadful little town knows all about it," she thought with a sense of panic. "People haven't anything to do but remember dates." She wondered if she could prevail upon her husband to go west, leaving Diantha in school somewhere. Then she could say what she chose of her "little girl" without appealing to the risibilities of her audience.

      Persis, distracted for a moment by the false

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