you occupy in the
world of business. We are launching a campaign against the
extravagant, ridiculous, and oftentimes indecent dress of the working
girl, with especial reference to the girl who works in garment
factories. They squander their earnings in costumes absurdly unfitted
to their station in life. Our plan is to influence them in the
direction of neatness, modesty, and economy in dress. At present each
tries to outdo the other in style and variety of costume. Their shoes
are high-heeled, cloth-topped, their blouses lacy and collarless, their
hats absurd. We propose a costume which shall be neat, becoming, and
appropriate. Not exactly a uniform, perhaps, but something with a
fixed idea in cut, color, and style. A corps of twelve young ladies
belonging to our best families has been chosen to speak to the shop
girls at noon meetings on the subject of good taste, health, and
morality in women's dress. My daughter Gladys is one of them. In this
way, we hope to convince them that simplicity, and practicality, and
neatness are the only proper notes in the costume of the working girl.
Occupying as you do a position unique in the business world, Mrs. Buck,
we expect much from your cooperation with us in this cause."

Emma McChesney Buck had been gazing at Mrs. Orton-Wells with an
intentness as flattering as it was unfeigned. But at the close of Mrs.
Orton-Wells' speech she was strangely silent. She glanced down at her
shoes. Now, Emma McChesney Buck had a weakness for smart shoes which
her slim, well-arched foot excused. Hers were what might be called
intelligent-looking feet. There was nothing thick, nothing clumsy,
nothing awkward about them. And Emma treated them with the
consideration they deserved. They were shod now, in a pair of slim,
aristocratic, and modish ties above which the grateful eye caught a
flashing glimpse of black-silk stocking. Then her eye traveled up her
smartly tailored skirt, up the bodice of that well-made and becoming
costume until her glance rested on her own shoulder and paused. Then
she looked up at Mrs. Orton-Wells. The eyes of Mrs. Orton-Wells, Miss
Susan H. Croft, and Miss Gladys Orton-Wells had, by some strange power
of magnetism, followed the path of Emma's eyes. They finished just one
second behind her, so that when she raised her eyes it was to encounter
theirs.

"I have explained," retorted Mrs. Orton-Wells, tartly, in reply to
nothing, seemingly, "that our prob