tood before us oracularly. "After next September," she said, "you
will both scorn the sloth of civilization. You will move about for the
joy of moving about. You will have cast off the shackles of the flesh
and be born anew. That is, if a plan of mine goes through. Lizzie, you
will lose fifty pounds!"

Well, I didn't want to lose fifty pounds. After our summer in the Maine
woods I had gone back to find that my new tailor-made coat, which had
fitted me exactly, and being stiffened with haircloth kept its shape off
and looked as if I myself were hanging to the hook, had caved in on me
in several places. Just as I had gone to the expense of having it taken
in I began to put on flesh again, and had to have it let out. Besides,
no woman over forty should ever reduce, at least not violently. She
wrinkles. My face that summer had fallen into accordion plaits, and I
had the curious feeling of having enough skin for two.

Aggie had suggested at that time that I have my cheeks filled out with
paraffin, which I believe cakes and gives the appearance of youth. But
Mrs. Ostermaier knew a woman who had done so, and being hit on one side
by a snowball, the padding broke in half, one part moving up under her
eye and the second lodging at the angle of her jaw. She tried lying on a
hot-water bottle to melt the pieces and bring them together again, but
they did not remain fixed, having developed a wandering habit and
slipping unexpectedly now and then. Mrs. Ostermaier says it is painful
to watch her holding them in place when she yawns.

Strangely enough, however, a few weeks later Tish's enthusiasm for the
West had apparently vanished. When several weeks went by and the atlas
had disappeared from her table, and she had given up vegetarianism for
Swedish movements, we felt that we were to have a quiet summer after
all, and Aggie wrote to a hotel in Asbury Park about rooms for July and
August.

There was a real change in Tish. She stopped knitting abdominal bands
for the soldiers in Europe, for one thing, although she had sent over
almost a dozen very tasty ones. In the evenings, when we dropped in to
chat with her, she said very little and invariably dozed in her chair.

On one such occasion, Aggie having inadvertently stepped on the rocker
of her chair while endeavoring by laying a hand on Tish's brow to
discover if she was feverish, the chair tilted back and Tish wakened
with a jerk.

She immediately fell to groaning and clasped h