out of date," said Martha
Wallingford, "and this Mrs. Edes may be real nice. I'm going to see
her anyhow. We came so late in the season that I believe everybody in
New York worth seeing has gone away and this lady has come in from
the country and it may lead to my having a good time after all. I
haven't had much of a time so far, and you know it, Aunt Susan."

"How you talk, Martha Wallingford! Haven't you been to the theatre
every night and Coney Island, and the Metropolitan and--everything
there is to see?"

"There isn't much to see in New York anyway except the people,"
returned the niece. "People are all I care for anyway, and I don't
call the people I have seen worth counting. They only came to make a
little money out of me and my sleeves. I am glad I got this dress at
McCreery's. These sleeves are all right. If this Mrs. Edes should be
a newspaper woman, she can't make fun of these sleeves anyway."

"You paid an awful price for that dress," said her aunt.

"I don't care. I got such a lot for my book that I might as well have
a little out of it, and you know as well as I do, Aunt Susan, that
South Mordan, Illinois, may be a very nice place, but it does not
keep up with New York fashions. I really did not have a decent thing
to wear when I started. Miss Slocumb did as well as she knew how, but
her ideas are about three years behind New York. I didn't know
myself, how should I? And you didn't, and as for Pa, he would think
everything I had on was stylish if it dated back to the ark. You
ought to have bought that mauve silk for yourself. You have money
enough; you know you have, Aunt Susan."

"I have money enough, thanks to my dear husband's saving all his
life, but it is not going to be squandered on dress by me, now he is
dead and gone."

"I would have bought the dress for you myself, then," said the niece.

"No, thank you," returned the aunt with asperity. "I have never been
in the habit of being beholden to you for my clothes and I am not
going to begin now. I didn't want that dress anyway. I always hated
purple."

"It wasn't purple, it was mauve."

"I call purple, purple, I don't call it anything else!" Then the
aunt retreated precipitately before the sound of the opening door and
entrenched herself in her bedroom, where she stood listening.

Margaret Edes treated the young author with the respect which she
really deserved, for talent she possessed in such a marked degree as
to make her phenomenal,