and so would you if you had
been married, Anna, dear."

Anna laughed, a trifle bitterly. "Good Lord," said she, "if I had to
think of a trousseau for myself, I should be a maniac! The trousseau
would at any time have seemed a much more difficult matter than the
bridegroom."

"Yes, I know you have had a great many very good chances," assented
Mrs. Carroll, "and it would have seemed most of the time much easier
to have just managed the husband part of it than the new clothes,
because one doesn't have to pay cash or have good credit for a
husband, and one does for clothes."

"Well," said Anna Carroll, "that is the trouble about Ina. It was
easy enough for her to get the husband. Major Arms has always had his
eye on her ever since she was in short dresses; but what isn't at all
easy is the new clothes."

"I don't see why, dear."

"Well, how is it to be managed, if you will be so good as to inform
me, Amy?"

"How? Why, just go to the dressmaker's and order them, of course."

"What dressmaker's, dear?"

"Well, I think that last New York dressmaker is the best. She really
has imagination like a French dressmaker. She doesn't copy; she
creates. She is really quite an artist."

"Madame Potoffsky, you mean?"

"Yes, dear. The dressmaker whose husband they say was a descendant of
the Polish patriot. They say she herself is descended from a Russian
princess who eloped with the Polish patriot, and I can believe it.
There is something very unusual about her. She always makes me a
little bit nervous, because one does get to associating Russians,
especially those that run away with patriots, with bombs and things
of that kind, but she is a wonderful dressmaker. I certainly think it
would be wise to patronize her for Ina's trousseau, Anna."

Anna laughed, and rather bitterly, again. "Well, dear, I have my
doubts about our ability to patronize her," she said, "and, granting
that we could, you might in reality encounter the bomb as penalty."

"Anna, dear, what--"

"Amy, don't you know that Madame Potoffsky simply will not give us
any further credit?"

"Oh, Anna, do you think so?"

"I know. Amy, only think of the things we owe her for now--my linen,
my pongee, my canvas, your two foulards, Ina's muslin, Charlotte's
etamine! It is impossible."

"Oh, dear! Do we owe her for all those?"

"We do."

"Well, then, I fear you are right, Anna," Mrs. Carroll said, ruefully.

The two women continued to look at each other. Mr