Centropolis, when it learned the news, was thunder-struck. For a matter
of hours, one might say, the town held its breath. Then it began to
talk. The women began asking questions: What did the actress look like?
The men offered lame descriptions. Rose had been seen, apparently, that
morning on Main Street, by the entire male population, but their
descriptions weren't satisfactory. Curiosity must be assuaged! But Rose
never went into the stores on Main Street; never patronized the
picture-show, and even had these glimpses been afforded, they'd have
been pretty unsatisfactory. There was only one real way of discovering
what the creature was like; discovering for yourself, that is--and
hearsay evidence is notoriously unreliable; that was to buy a hat of
Lizzie Gibbons.

The first daring adventurer was Agatha Stebbins. Agatha found, you will
remember, the hat Rose had already designed for her. And, as Miss
Gibbons caustically disclaimed the authorship of it ("I'd never have
made you up a thing like that, you can believe!") and as Miss Stebbins,
after a moment's hesitation, decided she adored it, another inducement,
though perhaps a superfluous one, was offered for visits to the atelier.

"Of course she isn't what you could call genteel," Miss Stebbins
explained, parading her acquisition, "and she's never had any
advantages. And as to her moral character, I suppose the less said the
better. Lizzie Gibbons can settle that question with her own conscience.
But when it comes to hats she's got more gimp in her little finger than
Lizzie's got in both hands. Dear, no! She's not what I call pretty. Not
with a mouth like that. Of course the men ..."

So Miss Gibbons' spring business was distended to unrecognizable
proportions. Rose fitted on hats in the show-room during business hours
and took a mischievous delight in the assumption of the intangible
manner of a perfect shop-assistant; in saying "Yes, madam," and "No,
madam," and "Will you try this, madam?" with a perfection of politeness
that baffled the most determined curiosity. Miss Gibbons got as much fun
out of it as she did.

The hours in the workroom were pleasant ones, too, with their perpetual
reminder that the creative power that had deserted her last January, had
come back. The little problems were ludicrously easy, of course but they
stimulated a pleasant sense of reserve power.

She couldn't, of course, have stayed in Centropolis indefinitely. In
time, that feeli