morning following the Gorgeous Girl's visit
to Steve's office Trudy unwillingly dragged herself downstairs at
half-past ten in a faded, bescrolled kimono over careless lingerie,
her hair bundled under a partially soiled boudoir cap, and her feet
flopping along in tattered silk slippers.

"Oh, dear, it's Sunday again," she began. "Goodness me, Mary, I'd hate
to be as good as you are--always up and smiling! Why don't you have a
permanent smile put on your face? It would be lots easier."

At which joke Luke giggled, and Mrs. Faithful, ensconced in a large
rocker behind the starched curtains so that nothing passing on the
street could escape her eagle, melancholy eye, nodded approval and
added: "I should think Mary would lie abed the one morning she could.
But no, she gets Luke up no matter what the weather is, and flies
round like a house afire. When I was in my father's house I never had
to lift a finger. Trudy, I wish you could have seen my bedroom. I had
a mahogany four-poster bed with white draperies, and a dresser to
match the bed, and my father bought me a silver toilet set when he was
in Lexington, Kentucky, one time. He used to go there to sell horses.
I remember one time I went with him and if I do say so I was much
admired.

"I rode horseback those days and I had a dappled-gray pony named Pet,
and everyone said it was just like looking at a picture to see me go
prancing by. Of course I never thought about it. I wore a black velvet
riding habit with a long train and a black velvet hat with a white
plume just floating behind, and I had white gauntlets, too.

"Mary, Trudy wants her coffee. Hot cakes? Oh, pshaw, they won't hurt
you a mite. I was raised on 'em. I guess I'll have another plateful,
Mary, while you're frying 'em. I'm so comfortable I hate to get up....
You poor little girls having to go out and hustle all week long and
not half appreciated! Never mind, some Prince Charming will come and
carry you off sometime." Whereat she waddled to the table to wait for
the hot cakes to arrive.

Mrs. Faithful had pepper-and-salt-coloured hair and small dark eyes
that snapped like an angry bird's, and a huge double chin. Her
nondescript shape resolved itself into a high, peaked lap over which,
when not eating hot cakes, her stubby hands seemed eternally clasped.

"Mary takes after her pa, poor child," she had told Trudy confidentially.
"Lean and lank as a clothes pole! And those gray eyes that look you
straight t