one day--a promise of sweets to come!" and she
laughed again, with a hearty purr like a cat that has a mouse at its
mercy.

She rose and carried in the pan of potatoes we had just finished
peeling. And I saw her sturdy, but not unshapely ankles going from me as
she went up the steps from the yard, her legs gleaming white through her
half-silk hose (that were always coming down, and that she was always
twisting up, just under her knees, before my abashed eyes). She wore
shoes much too little for her plump feet ... and, when not abroad, let
them yawn open unbuttoned. And her plump body was alive and bursting
through her careless, half-fastened clothes.

She sang with a deep sultriness of voice as she walked away with the pan
of potatoes.

* * * * *

"You ought to see my Florrie read books!" exclaimed the mother.

Flora did read a lot ... but chiefly the erotic near-society novels that
Belford used to print....

"Yes, she's a smart girl, she is."

And the father....

"I won't work till the unions get better conditions for a man. I won't
be no slave to no man."

* * * * *

One sultry afternoon I went into the restaurant and found Flora away.
Poignantly disappointed, I asked where she was.

"--Gone on a trip!" her mother explained, without explaining.

From time to time Flora went on "trips."

* * * * *

And one morning, several mornings, Flora was not there to serve at the
breakfast table ... and I was hurt when I learned that she had gone back
to Newark to live, and had left no word for me. Her father told me she
"had gone back to George," meaning her never-seen husband from whom she
evidently enjoyed intervals of separation and grass-widowhood.

I was puzzled and hurt indeed, because she had not even said good-bye
to me. But soon came this brief note from her:

"Dearest Boy:--

Do come up to Newark and see me some afternoon. And come more than
once. Bring your Tennyson that you was reading aloud to me. I love
to hear you read poetry. I think you are a dear and want to see
more of you. But I suppose you have already forgotten

Your loving

FLORA."

In the absurd and pitiful folly of youth I lifted the letter to my lips
and kissed it. I trembled with eagerness till the paper rattled as I
read it again and