inner that evening, Emma's gown was so obviously not of the new
crop that even her husband's inexpert eye noted it.

"That's not one of the new ones, is it?"

"This! And you a manufacturer of skirts!"

"What's the matter with the supply of new dresses? Isn't there enough
to go round?"

"Enough! I've never had so many new gowns in my life. The trouble is
that I shan't feel at home in them until I've had 'em all dry-cleaned
at least once."

During the second month, there came a sudden, sharp change in skirt
modes. For four years women had been mincing along in garments so
absurdly narrow that each step was a thing to be considered, each
curbing or car-step demanding careful negotiation. Now, Fashion, in
her freakiest mood, commanded a bewildering width of skirt that was
just one remove from the flaring hoops of Civil War days. Emma knew
what that meant for the Featherloom workrooms and selling staff. New
designs, new models, a shift in prices, a boom for petticoats, for four
years a garment despised.

A hundred questions were on the tip of Emma's tongue; a hundred
suggestions flashed into her keen mind; there occurred to her a
wonderful design for a new model which should be full and flaring
without being bulky and uncomfortable as were the wide petticoats of
the old days.

But a bargain was a bargain. Still, Emma Buck was as human as Emma
McChesney had been. She could not resist a timid,

"T. A., are you--that is--I was just wondering--you're making 'em wide,
I suppose, for the spring trade."

A queer look flashed into T. A. Buck's eyes--a relieved look that was
as quickly replaced by an expression both baffled and anxious.

"Why--a--mmmm--yes--oh, yes, we're making 'em up wide, but----"

"But what?" Emma leaned forward, tense.

"Oh, nothing--nothing."

During the second month there came calling on Emma, those solid and
heavy New Yorkers, with whom the Buck family had been on friendly terms
for many years. They came at the correct hour, in their correct motor
or conservative broughams, wearing their quietly correct clothes, and
Emma gave them tea, and they talked on every subject from suffrage to
salad dressings, and from war to weather, but never once was mention
made of business. And Emma McChesney's life had been interwoven with
business for more than fifteen years.

There were dinners--long, heavy, correct dinners. Emma, very well
dressed, bright-eyed, alert, intelligent, vital, became