ore she left was Harriet
Kennedy. On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored
maid had announced a visitor.

Harriet's business instinct had been good. She had taken expensive rooms
in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor
store. Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on
commission.

Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of
a new heaven and a new earth. Here, at last, she found people speaking
her own language. She ventured a suggestion to a manufacturer, and found
it greeted, not, after the manner of the Street, with scorn, but with
approval and some surprise.

"About once in ten years," said Mr. Arthurs, "we have a woman from out
of town bring us a suggestion that is both novel and practical. When we
find people like that, we watch them. They climb, madame,--climb."

Harriet's climbing was not so rapid as to make her dizzy; but business
was coming. The first time she made a price of seventy-five dollars
for an evening gown, she went out immediately after and took a drink of
water. Her throat was parched.

She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who
can pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered
good form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high
they may be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales--no woman
over thirty but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft
lights. And Harriet herself conformed to the picture. She took a lesson
from the New York modistes, and wore trailing black gowns. She strapped
her thin figure into the best corset she could get, and had her black
hair marcelled and dressed high. And, because she was a lady by birth
and instinct, the result was not incongruous, but refined and rather
impressive.

She took her business home with her at night, lay awake scheming, and
wakened at dawn to find fresh color combinations in the early sky. She
wakened early because she kept her head tied up in a towel, so that her
hair need be done only three times a week. That and the corset were the
penalties she paid. Her high-heeled shoes were a torment, too; but in
the work-room she kicked them off.

To this new Harriet, then, came Tillie in her distress. Tillie was
rather overwhelmed at first. The Street had always considered Harriet
"proud." But Tillie's urgency was great, her methods direct.

"Why, Tillie!"