f was aware of no incongruity, indeed of no
difference, between the two sorts of efforts.

Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful of
suggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remembered dictum
about the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-board
which warned Sylvia against the multiplication of detail, even
desirable detail.

Mrs. Hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of distinction
in modern dress, and had grasped with philosophic thoroughness the
underlying principle of the art, which is to show effects obviously
costly, but the cost of which is due less to mere brute cash than to
prodigally expended effort. Eleanor never wore a costume which did not
show the copious exercise by some alert-minded human being, presumably
with an immortal soul, of the priceless qualities of invention,
creative thought, trained attention, and prodigious industry. Mrs.
Hubert's unchallengeable slogan was that dress should be an expression
of individuality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of the
attire of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffle
and buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to express the
whole of her own individuality, the conspicuous force of which was
readily conceded by any observer of the lady's life.

As for Eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of that very
unobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of her
eyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. It
is possible that Mrs. Hubert might have regarded it as an unkind
visitation of Providence that the results of her lifetime of effort
in an important art should have been of such slight interest to
her daughter, and should have served, during the autumn under
consideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her daughter's
successful rival.

That she was Eleanor's successful rival, Sylvia had Mrs. Draper's more
than outspoken word. That lady openly gloried in the impending defeat
of Mrs. Hubert's machinations to secure the Fiske money and position
for Eleanor; although she admitted that a man like Jerry had his two
opposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being attracted by
two such contrasting types as Sylvia and Eleanor. She informed Sylvia
indeed that the present wife of Colonel Fiske--his third, by the
way--had evidently been in her youth a girl of Eleanor's temperament.
It was more than apparent, however, that in the