of her shop hatless rather than with an unbecoming hat. But whether you
bought or not you took with you out of Sophy Decker's shop something
more precious than any hatbox ever contained. Just to hear her
admonishing a customer, her good-natured face all aglow:

"My dear, always put on your hat before you get into your dress. I do.
You can get your arms above your head, and set it right. I put on my hat
and veil as soon's I get my hair combed."

In your mind's eye you saw her, a stout, well-stayed figure in tight
brassiere and scant petticoat, bare-armed and bare-bosomed, in smart hat
and veil, attired as though for the street from the neck up and for the
bedroom from the shoulders down.

The East-End set bought Sophy Decker's hats because they were modish and
expensive hats. But she managed, miraculously, to gain a large and
lucrative following among the paper-mill girls and factory hands as
well. You would have thought that any attempt to hold both these
opposites would cause her to lose one or the other. Aunt Sophy said,
frankly, that of the two, she would have preferred to lose her smart
trade.

"The mill girls come in with their money in their hands, you might say.
They get good wages and they want to spend them. I wouldn't try to sell
them one of those little plain model hats. They wouldn't understand 'em,
or like them. And if I told them the price they'd think I was trying to
cheat them. They want a velvet hat with something good and solid on it.
Their fathers wouldn't prefer caviar to pork roast, would they? It's the
same idea."

Her shop windows reflected her business acumen. One was chastely,
severely elegant, holding a single hat poised on a slender stick. In the
other were a dozen honest arrangements of velvet and satin and plumes.

At the spring opening she always displayed one of those little toques
completely covered with violets. No one ever bought a hat like that. No
one ever will. That violet-covered toque is a symbol.

"I don't expect 'em to buy it," Sophy Decker explained. "But everybody
feels there should be a hat like that at a spring opening. It's like a
fruit centre-piece at a family dinner. Nobody ever eats it but it has to
be there."

The two Baldwin children--Adele and Eugene--found Aunt Sophy's shop a
treasure trove. Adele, during her doll days, possessed such boxes of
satin and velvet scraps, and bits of lace, and ribbon and jet as to make
her the envy of all her playmates. She used