Chesney's stanchest admirers and a long-tried
business friend.

The usual thing: "Younger than ever, Mrs. McChesney! You're a
wonder--yes, you are! How's business? Same here. Going to have lunch
with me to-day?" Then: "I'll just run in and see Buck. Say, where's
he been keeping himself all these years? Chip off the old block, that
boy."

So he had the men, too!

It was in this frame of mind that Miss Ethel Morrissey found her on the
morning that she came into New York on her semi-annual buying-trip.
Ethel Morrissey, plump, matronly-looking, quiet, with her hair fast
graying at the sides, had nothing of the skittish Middle Western buyer
about her. She might have passed for the mother of a brood of six if
it were not for her eyes--the shrewd, twinkling, far-sighted, reckoning
eyes of the business woman. She and Emma McChesney had been friends
from the day that Ethel Morrissey had bought her first cautious bill of
Featherlooms. Her love for Emma McChesney had much of the maternal in
it. She felt a personal pride in Emma McChesney's work, her success,
her clean reputation, her life of self-denial for her son Jock. When
Ethel Morrissey was planned by her Maker, she had not been meant to be
wasted on the skirt-and-suit department of a small-town store. That
broad, gracious breast had been planned as a resting-place for heads in
need of comfort. Those plump, firm arms were meant to enfold the weak
and distressed. Those capable hands should have smoothed troubled
heads and patted plump cheeks, instead of wasting their gifts in
folding piles of petticoats and deftly twitching a plait or a tuck into
place. She was playing Rosalind in buskins when she should have been
cast for the Nurse.

She entered Emma McChesney's office, now, in her quiet blue suit and
her neat hat, and she looked very sane and cheerful and rosy-cheeked
and dependable. At least, so Emma McChesney thought, as she kissed
her, while the plump arms held her close.

Ethel Morrissey, the hugging process completed, held her off and eyed
her.

"Well, Emma McChesney, flourish your Featherlooms for me. I want to
buy and get it over, so we can talk."

"Are you sure that you want to buy of me?" asked Emma McChesney, a
little wearily.

"What's the joke?"

"I'm not joking. I thought that perhaps you might prefer to see Mr.
Buck this trip."

Ethel Morrissey placed one forefinger under Emma McChesney's chin and
turned that lady's face toward