xactly like the model Hexter's got this year and guess what he's
charging!" The guess was, of course, always a triumph for the discoverer
of the little tailor.

The great lake dimpled or roared not twenty feet away. The park offered
shade and quiet. The broad veranda invited one with its ample armchairs.
You would have thought that peace and comfort had come at last to this
shrewd, knowledgeous, hard-worked woman of sixty. She was handsomer than
she had been at twenty or thirty. The white powdering her black hair
softened her face, lightened her sallow skin, gave a finer lustre to her
dark eyes. She used a good powder and had an occasional facial massage.
Her figure, though full, was erect, firm, neat. Around her throat she
wore an inch-wide band of black velvet that becomingly hid the chords
and sagging chin muscles.

Yet now, if ever in her life, Hannah Winter was a slave.

Every morning at eight o'clock Marcia telephoned her mother. The hotel
calls cost ten cents, but Marcia's was an unlimited phone. The
conversation would start with a formula.

"Hello--Mama?... How are you?"

"Fine."

"Sleep all right?"

"Oh, yes. I never sleep all night through any more."

"Oh, you probably just think you don't.... Are you doing anything
special this morning?"

"Well, I----Why?"

"Nothing. I just wondered if you'd mind taking Joan to the dentist's.
Her brace came off again this morning at breakfast. I don't see how I
can take her because Elsie's giving that luncheon at one, you know, and
the man's coming about upholstering that big chair at ten. I'd call up
and try to get out of the luncheon, but I've promised, and there's
bridge afterward and it's too late now for Elsie to get a fourth.
Besides, I did that to her once before and she was furious. Of course,
if you can't ... But I thought if you haven't anything to do, really,
why----"

Through Hannah Winter's mind would flash the events of the day as she
had planned it. She had meant to go downtown shopping that morning.
Nothing special. Some business at the bank. Mandel's had advertised a
sale of foulards. She hated foulards with their ugly sprawling patterns.
A nice, elderly sort of material. Marcia was always urging her to get
one. Hannah knew she never would. She liked the shops in their spring
vividness. She had a shrewd eye for a bargain. A bite of lunch
somewhere; then she had planned to drop in at that lecture at the
Woman's Club. It was by the man who wrote