linder just big enough for her two hands. It had been her
outdoor uniform, winter after winter, for as many years as he could
remember of his boyhood. When she had died the mink coat had gone to his
sister Carrie, he remembered.

A mink coat. The very words called up in his mind sharp winter days; the
pungent moth-bally smell of his mother's fur-coated bosom when she had
kissed him good-bye that day he left for Chicago; comfort; womanliness.
A mink coat.

"How much could you get one for? A mink coat."

Cora hesitated a moment. "Oh--I guess you could get a pretty good one
for three thousand."

"You're crazy," said Ray, unemotionally. He was not angry. He was
amused.

But Cora was persistent. Her coat was a sight. She had to have
something. She never had had a real fur coat.

"How about your Hudson seal?"

"Hudson seal! Did you ever see any seals in the Hudson! Fake fur. I've
never had a really decent piece of fur in my life. Always some mangy
make-believe. All the girls in the Crowd are getting new coats this
year. The woman next door--Mrs. Hoyt--is talking of getting one. She
says Mr. Hoyt----"

"Say, who are these Hoyts, anyway?"

Ray came home early one day to find the door to 618 open. He glanced in,
involuntarily. A man sat in the living room--a large, rather red-faced
man, in his shirt-sleeves, relaxed, comfortable, at ease. From the open
door came the most tantalizing and appetizing smells of candied sweet
potatoes, a browning roast, steaming vegetables.

Mrs. Hoyt had run in to bring a slice of fresh-baked chocolate cake to
Cora. She often brought in dishes of exquisitely prepared food thus, but
Raymond had never before encountered her. Cora introduced them. Mrs.
Hoyt smiled, nervously, and said she must run away and tend to her
dinner. And went. Ray looked after her. He strode into the kitchenette
where Cora stood, hatted, at the sink.

"Say, looka here, Cora. You got to quit seeing that woman, see?"

"What woman?"

"One calls herself Mrs. Hoyt. That woman. Mrs. Hoyt! Ha!"

"Why, Ray, what in the world are you talking about! Aren't you
_fun_-ny!"

"Yeh; well, you cut her out. I won't have you running around with a
woman like that. Mrs. Hoyt! Mrs. Fiddlesticks!"

They had a really serious quarrel about it. When the smoke of battle
cleared away Raymond had paid the first instalment on a three thousand
dollar mink coat. And, "If we could sub-lease," Cora said, "I think it
would be wonderful to