lls.
No such fashionable sight ever had been witnessed in the town as Mrs.
Symes presented when, in a pair of white kid gloves and a veil, she
picked her way with ostentatious daintiness across several vacant lots
still encumbered with cactus and sagebrush, to the log residence of Mr.
and Mrs. Alva Jackson.

There was a pair of eyes staring unabashed at every front window in the
neighborhood when Mrs. Symes stood on Mrs. Jackson's "stoop" and removed
a piece of baling wire from the lace frill of her petticoat before she
wrapped her handkerchief around her hand to protect her white kid
knuckles and knocked with lady-like gentleness upon Mrs. Jackson's door.

Mrs. Jackson, who had been peering through the foliage of a potted
geranium on the window-sill, was pinning frantically at her scolding
locks, but retained sufficient presence of mind to let a proper length
of time elapse before opening the door. When she did, it was with an
elaborate bow from the waistline and a surprised--

"Why, how do you do, Mis' Symes!"

Mrs. Symes smiled in prim sweetness, and noting that Mrs. Jackson's
hands looked reasonably clean, extended one of the first two white kid
gloves in Crowheart which Mrs. Jackson shook with heartiness before
bouncing back and inquiring--

"Won't you come in, Mis' Symes?"

"Thanks." Mrs. Symes took a pinch of the front breadth of her skirt
between her thumb and finger and stepped daintily over the door-sill.

"Set down," urged Mrs. Jackson making a dash at a blue plush
rocking-chair which she rolled into the centre of the room with great
energy.

When the chair tipped and sent Mrs. Symes's feet into the air Mrs.
Jackson's burst of laughter was heard distinctly by Mrs. Tutts across
the street.

"Trash!" exclaimed that person in unfathomable contempt.

Mrs. Jackson had two missing front teeth which she had lost upon an
occasion to which she no longer referred, also a voice strained and
husky from the many midnight choruses in which she had joined before she
sold her goodwill and fixtures. She now rested her outspread fingers
upon each knee and wildly ransacked her brain for something light and
airy in the way of conversation.

Mrs. Symes, sitting bolt upright on the edge of the plush rocking-chair
with her long, flat feet pressed tightly together, tweaked at the only
veil in Crowheart and cleared her throat with subdued and lady-like
restraint before she inquired--

"Isn't it a lovely day?"

"Oh,