while, the whole top of the sock is covered with tin,
making it an extraordinarily uncomfortable thing to wear, and a strange
thing to look at. There is still another way in which the laundry devil
tortures the sock-owner. He can find ways to shrink any sock that is not
made of solid heavy silk; and of course he can rip silk socks all to
pieces. He will take silk-and-wool socks of normal length, and in one
washing will so reduce them that you can hardly get your foot into them,
and that the upper margins of them come only about an inch above your
shoe-tops. People who have no business to do so, are thus enabled, when
you are seated, to see the tops of your socks and to amuse themselves by
counting the tin tags with which they are adorned. Also, the socks,
being so short, become better pullers than the garters, so that instead
of the garters holding the socks up, the socks pull the garters down.
This usually occurs as you are walking up the aisle in church, or in the
middle of a dance, and of course your garter manages to come unclasped,
into the bargain, and goes trailing after you, like a convict's ball and
chain.

For a time you can stand this sort of thing, but presently you begin to
pine for the delicate washtub artistry of Amanda, at home; for vestments
which, when sent to the wash, do not come back riddled with holes, or
smelling as though they had been washed in carbolic acid, or in the tub
with a large fish.

So, presently, you fold up your rags like the Arabs, fasten your
battered baggage shut as best you can, put it on a taxi, and head for
the railway station. No train ever looks so handsome as the home-bound
train you find there. No engineer ever looks so sturdy and capable,
leaning from the window of his cab, as the one who is to take you home.

Up through the South you fly, past many places you have seen before,
past towns where you have friends whom you would like to see again--only
not now! Now nothing will do but home! Out of the region of magnolias,
palmettoes and live-oaks you pass into the region of pines, and out of
the region of pines into that of maples and elms. At last you come to
Washington.... Only a few hours longer! How satisfyingly the train slips
along! You are not conscious of curves, or even of turning wheels
beneath you. Your progress is like the swift glide of a flying sled.
Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton. Nothing to do but look
from the car windows and rejoice. Not that