ed her good in the minds of our lady porch-knockers. And the men just
as bad, though they could hardly bear to look twice at her, she was that
discouraging to the eye; they agreed with their wives that she must be
one of that sort.

"But things seem to pile up all at once in our town. That very summer
the fashion magazines was handed round with pages turned down at the
more daring spots where ladies were shown in such things. It wasn't felt
that they were anything for the little ones to see. But still, after
all, wasn't it sensible, now really, when you come right down to it? and
as a matter of fact isn't a modest woman modest in anything?--it isn't
what she wears but how she conducts herself in public, or don't you
think so, Mrs. Ballard?--and you might as well be dead as out of style,
and would Lehman, the Square Tailor, be able to make up anything like
that one there?--but no, because how would he get your measure?--and
surely no modest woman could give him hers even if she did take it
herself--anyway, you'd be insulted by all the street rowdies as you rode
by, to say nothing of being ogled by men without a particle of fineness
in their natures--but there's always something to be said on both sides,
and it's time woman came into her own, anyway, if she is ever to be
anything but man's toy for his idle moments--still it would never do to
go to extremes in a narrow little town like this with every one just
looking for an excuse to talk--but it would be different if all the best
people got together and agreed to do it, only most of them would
probably back out at the last moment and that smarty on the _Recorder_
would try to be funny about it--now that one with the long coat doesn't
look so terrible, does it? or do you think so?--of course it's almost
the same as a skirt except when you climb on or something--a woman has
to think of those things--wouldn't Daisy Estelle look rather stunning in
that?--she has just the figure for it. Here's this No. 9872 with the
Norfolk jacket in this mail-order catalogue--do you think that looks too
theatrical, or don't you? Of course for some figures, but I've always
been able to wear--And so forth, for a month or so.

"Late in the fall Henrietta Templeton Price done it. You may not know
what that meant to Alonzo Price, Choice Villa Sites and Price's Addition
to Red Gap. Alonzo is this kind: I met him the day Gussie Himebaugh had
her accident when the mules she was driving to the mowing