nts, she never failed to ask the women who came into her shop what
you COULD make for anybody who got a thousand dollars a night. When the
Denver papers announced that Thea Kronborg had married Frederick
Ottenburg, the head of the Brewers' Trust, Moonstone people expected
that Tillie's vain-gloriousness would take another form. But Tillie had
hoped that Thea would marry a title, and she did not boast much about
Ottenburg,--at least not until after her memorable trip to Kansas City
to hear Thea sing.

Tillie is the last Kronborg left in Moonstone. She lives alone in a
little house with a green yard, and keeps a fancywork and millinery
store. Her business methods are informal, and she would never come out
even at the end of the year, if she did not receive a draft for a good
round sum from her niece at Christmas time. The arrival of this draft
always renews the discussion as to what Thea would do for her aunt if
she really did the right thing. Most of the Moonstone people think Thea
ought to take Tillie to New York and keep her as a companion. While they
are feeling sorry for Tillie because she does not live at the Plaza,
Tillie is trying not to hurt their feelings by showing too plainly how
much she realizes the superiority of her position. She tries to be
modest when she complains to the postmaster that her New York paper is
more than three days late. It means enough, surely, on the face of it,
that she is the only person in Moonstone who takes a New York paper or
who has any reason for taking one. A foolish young girl, Tillie lived in
the splendid sorrows of "Wanda" and "Strathmore"; a foolish old girl,
she lives in her niece's triumphs. As she often says, she just missed
going on the stage herself.

That night after the sociable, as Tillie tripped home with a crowd of
noisy boys and girls, she was perhaps a shade troubled. The twin's
question rather lingered in her ears. Did she, perhaps, insist too much
on that thousand dollars? Surely, people didn't for a minute think it
was the money she cared about? As for that, Tillie tossed her head, she
didn't care a rap. They must understand that this money was different.

When the laughing little group that brought her home had gone weaving
down the sidewalk through the leafy shadows and had disappeared, Tillie
brought out a rocking chair and sat down on her porch. On glorious, soft
summer nights like this, when the moon is opulent and full, the day
submerged and forgotten,