Tillie was gone.

Oddly enough, the last person to see her before she left was Harriet

Kennedy. On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored

maid had announced a visitor.

Harriet's business instinct had been good. She had taken expensive rooms

in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor store.

Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on commission.

Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of a

new heaven and a new earth. Here, at last, she found people speaking her

own language. She ventured a suggestion to a manufacturer, and found it

Advertisement..

greeted, not, after the manner of the Street, with scorn, but with approval

and some surprise.

"About once in ten years," said Mr. Arthurs, "we have a woman from out of

town bring us a suggestion that is both novel and practical. When we find

people like that, we watch them. They climb, madame,--climb."

Harriet's climbing was not so rapid as to make her dizzy; but business was

coming. The first time she made a price of seventy-five dollars for an

evening gown, she went out immediately after and took a drink of water.

Her throat was parched.

She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who can

pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered good

form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high they may

be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales--no woman over thirty

but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft lights. And

Harriet herself conformed to the picture. She took a lesson from the New

York modistes, and wore trailing black gowns. She strapped her thin figure

into the best corset she could get, and had her black hair marcelled and

dressed high. And, because she was a lady by birth and instinct, the

result was not incongruous, but refined and rather impressive.

She took her business home with her at night, lay awake scheming, and

wakened at dawn to find fresh color combinations in the early sky. She

wakened early because she kept her head tied up in a towel, so that her

hair need be done only three times a week. That and the corset were the

penalties she paid. Her high-heeled shoes were a torment, too; but in the

work-room she kicked them off.

To this new Harriet, then, came Tillie in her distress. Tillie was rather

overwhelmed at first. The Street had always considered Harriet "proud."

But Tillie's urgency was great, her methods direct.




Most Popular