acquired a "gentleman friend" in Kansas City who gave her
expensive presents. These her mother took great joy in displaying, and
never objected when he stayed after eleven o'clock; for she thought he
was "such a good catch" and such a "swell young man." But Nora shooed
him off the front porch in the summer following, because he objected to
her having two or three other eleven o'clock fellows. She said he was
"selfish, and would not let her have a good time." At nineteen she knew
more about matters that were none of her business than most women know
on their wedding day, and the boys said that she was soft. Every time
that Nora left town she came back with two or three correspondents. She
perfumed her stationery, used a seal, adopted all the latest frills,
and learned to write an angular hand. At twenty she was going with the
young married set, and was invited out to the afternoon card clubs. She
was known as a dashing girl at this time, and travelling men in three
States knew about her. Her mother used to send personal items to our
office telling of their exalted business positions and announcing their
visits to the Sinclair home. There was more or less talk about Nora in a
quiet way, but her mother said that "it is because the other girls don't
know how to wear their clothes as well as Nora does," and that "when a
girl has a fine figure--which few enough girls in this town have, Heaven
knows--why, she is a fool if she doesn't make the most of herself."

Then, gradually, Nora went to seed. She became a faded, hard-faced
woman, and all the sisters in town warned their brothers against her.
She was invited out only when there was a crowd. She took up with the
boys of the younger set, and the married women of her own age called her
the kidnapper. She was a social joke. About once a year a strange man
would show up in her parlour, and she kept up the illusion about being
engaged. But in the office we shared the town's knowledge that her harp
was on the willows. She was massaging her face at twenty-six and her
mother was sniffing at the town and saying that there were no social
advantages to be had here. She and the girl went to the Lakes every
summer, and Nora always came home declaring that she had had the time of
her life, and that she met so many lovely gentlemen. But that was all
there was to it, and in the end it was Abner Handy or no one.

After their wedding, Nora and Abner Handy set about the business of
making poli