sleeved gingham apron.

Beneath the dome of the wooden stud, Mrs. Shila Coblenz, of not too fulsome
but the hour-glass proportions of two decades ago, smiled, her black eyes,
ever so quick to dart, receding slightly as the cheeks lifted.

"Two twenty-five, Milt, for those ribbed assorted sizes and reinforced
heels. Leave or take. Bergdorff & Sloan will quote me the whole mill at
that price."

With his chest across the counter and legs out violently behind, Mr. Bauer
flung up a glance from his order-pad.

"Have a heart, Mrs. C. I'm getting two-forty for that stocking from every
house in town. The factory can't turn out the orders fast enough at that
price. An up-to-date woman like you mustn't make a noise like before the
war."

"Leave or take."

"You could shave an egg," he said.

"And rush up those printed lawns. There was two in this morning, sniffing
around for spring dimities."

"Any more cotton goods? Next month, this time, you'll be paying an advance
of four cents on percales."

"Stocked."

"Can't tempt you with them wash silks, Mrs. C.? Neatest little article on
the market to-day."

"No demand. They finger it up, and then buy the cotton stuffs. Every time I
forget my trade hacks rock instead of clips bonds for its spending-money I
get stung."

"This here wash silk, Mrs. C., would--"

"Send me up a dress-pattern off this coral-pink sample for Selene."

"This here dark mulberry, Mrs. C., would suit you something immense."

"That'll be about all."

He flopped shut his book, snapping a rubber band about it and inserting it
in an inner coat pocket.

"You ought to stick to them dark, winy shades, Mrs. C. With your coloring
and black hair and eyes, they bring you out like a gipsy. Never seen you
look better than at the Y.M.H.A. entertainment."

Quick color flowed down her open throat and into her shirtwaist. It was as
if the platitude merged with the very corpuscles of a blush that sank down
into thirsty soil.

"You boys," she said, "come out here and throw in a jolly with every bill
of goods. I'll take a good fat discount instead."

"Fact. Never seen you look better. When you got out on the floor in that
stamp-your-foot kind of dance with old man Shulof, your hand on your hip
and your head jerking it up, there wasn't a girl on the floor, your own
daughter included, could touch you, and I'm giving it to you straight."

"That old thing! It's a Russian folk-dance my mother taught me the first
ye