ess sea. She then looked in at
the shoe department. Seeing nothing there to interest her she made her
way to a lunch counter in the basement and satisfied her healthy
appetite with a club sandwich and a cup of chocolate. All the time she
kept her eye on the shoppers who passed back and forth. After her
luncheon she again visited the pile of rumpled blouses, much
diminished, and again made her way to the shoe department. Evidently
she saw something there that interested her keenly. She hurried to the
dressing room and in a moment emerged looking strangely unlike the
Josie her friends knew. Her sandy hair was completely covered by a
henna wig, bobbed and crimped. Her sedate sailor hat was cocked at a
rakish angle and draped with a much-ornamented veil, and mirabile
dictu! a lipstick had been freely and relentlessly applied to her
honest mouth and her cheeks were touched up with a paint of purplish
hue. Her sober Norfolk jacket was as much disguised as its wearer by a
silly lace frill pinned around the neck and down the front.

Back to the shoe department Josie hurried and flopped herself down by a
young woman who was busily engaged in trying on several styles of
bargain pumps. Her slender, high-arched foot was just the kind for the
shoes advertised as greatly reduced. It was the woman of the morning,
but she, too, was much changed--so much so that Josie herself might not
have recognized her had she not been looking for and expecting a
change. The dress she wore was no longer a cheap blue serge but a
handsome tricolette, richly trimmed according to the prevailing mode.
Her hat was plainly a Paris model in strong contrast to the battered,
flower-trimmed thing she had worn in the morning. She also had been
using a lip-stick and an extra touch of color was on her cheeks.

"Such sweet shoes!" ventured Josie in a mincing tone quite in keeping
with her henna wig and lace ruffle. "My, you have a pretty arch!"

The young woman smiled encouragement, while the admiring shoe clerk
tried on a smart brown suede pump.

"I have been trying to get my arch up," continued Josie, sticking out
her own well-shod little foot. Josie had very pretty feet and they were
one weakness. She always wore a sensible shoe, but it must be of the
best material and nobby cut.

"What do you advise?" she asked the clerk. "But maybe you can tell me,"
she said, addressing the young woman by her side. "Your foot is so
wonderful."

The woman was evidently p