railroad crossing--fortunately."

Penelope stirred uneasily at the memories in her own life conjured up by
this picture.

"Dora had the usual small town collection of wedding cut glass and
doilies, which she put away in the attic, after husband's decease; and,
with them, she also put away all respect and desire for the married
state. She was through with domesticity and all that it represented, and
made up her mind to devote the rest of her life to earning as big a
salary as she could and having the best time possible."

The rest of the story was a sordid account of this girl's effort to
combine business with pleasure, as men do, and of her startled discovery
one day, just at the moment of her greatest success--she had been
offered the position of head designer in a wholesale dress house with
coveted trips to Europe--that she was about to become a mother.

Penelope sighed wearily as she listened. Could she _never_ escape from
this eternal sex theme?

"You see," Bobby rattled on, "Dora knew she couldn't go to roof gardens
and supper parties alone, and she couldn't keep a chap on a string
without paying--so she paid. Of course she camouflaged this part of her
life very daintily, as she did everything else, but going out evenings
was as important to her as her business ambition was."

Mrs. Wells smiled faintly at the word camouflaged, for she knew better
than anyone else that this supposed story of a dressmaker was really the
story of Roberta Vallis herself, thinly disguised.

"The point is that after years of living exactly like a man," Miss
Vallis became a shade more serious here and a note of defiance crept
into her discourse, "with work and pleasure travelling along side by
side, Dora was called upon to face a situation that would have brought
her gay and prosperous career to a sad and shameful end in any
well-constructed Sunday School book; but please notice that it did
nothing of the sort in real life. Did she lose her job? She did not. Or
her health or reputation? Nothing like that. After she got over the
first shock of surprise Dora decided to go through with the thing, and,
being tall and thin, got away with it successfully. No one suspected
that the illness which kept her away from her work was anything but
influenza, and--well, the child didn't live," she concluded abruptly as
she caught Seraphine's disapproving glance. "The point is that Dora is
today one of the most successful business women in Boston.