horn in cattle, but I never
heard of hollow legs, though they are getting lots of new diseases."

By the time Mrs. Brotherton found it necessary to stop for breath, Laura
Van Dorn had regained the color that had dimmed as she heard the
reference to Henry Fenn. And when she met Mrs. Margaret Fenn at a turn
of the aisle, Mrs. Margaret Fenn was the spirit of joy and it seemed
that Mrs. Van Dorn was her long lost sister; so Mrs. Margaret Fenn began
fumbling her over to find the identifying strawberry mark. At least that
is what Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., told Mrs. Nesbit as she sold Mrs. Nesbit
the large one with the brown plume.

Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., made it a rule never to gossip, as every one who
frequented her shop was told, but as between old friends she would say
to Mrs. Nesbit that if ever one woman glued herself to another, and
couldn't be boiled or frozen, or chopped loose, that woman was Maggie
Fenn sticking to Laura Van Dorn. And Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., closed her
mouth significantly, and Mrs. Nesbit pretended with a large obvious,
rather clumsy pretense, that she read no meaning in Mrs. Herdicker's
words. The handsome Miss Morton, with her shoe tops tiptoeing to her
skirts, who was in the shop and out of school for the rush season,
listened hard, but after that they whispered and the handsome Miss
Morton turned her attention to the youngest Miss Morton who was munching
bonbons and opening the door for all of Harvey and South Harvey and the
principalities around about to enter and pass out. After school came the
tired school teachers from the High School, her eldest sister, Emma
Morton, among them, with their books and reports pressed against their
sides. But Margaret Fenn did not see the school teachers, nor even the
fifth Mrs. Sands towed about by her star-eyed stepdaughter Anne, though
Margaret Fenn's eyes were busy. But she was watching the women; she was
looking for something as though to ward it off, always glancing ahead of
her to see where she was going, and who was in her path; always
measuring her woman, always listening under the shriek of the
clarionettes, always quick with a smile--looking for
something--something that she may have felt was upon its way, something
that she dreaded to see. But all the shoulders she hobnobbed with that
day were warm enough--indifferently warm, and that was all she asked. So
she smiled and radiated her fine, animal grace, her feline beauty, her
superfemininity, and was as