o understand the city and the people among whom his life was
to be spent. Indeed, his father, Richard McCrea, had made something of a
concession to custom in giving his son four years of academic life. Ray
was now to be trained in every department of that vast departmental
concern, the Store, and was soon to go abroad as the promising cadet of
a famous commercial establishment, to make the acquaintance of the
foreign importers and agents of the house. Oh, her mother would quite
like all that, though she would be disappointed to learn that there had
thus far been no rejected suitors. In her mother's day every fair damsel
carried scalps at her belt, figuratively speaking--and after marriage,
became herself a trophy of victory. Dear "mummy" was that, Kate thought
tenderly--a willing and reverential parasite, "ladylike" at all costs,
contented to have her husband provide for her, her pastor think for her,
and Martha Underwood, the domineering "help" in the house at Silvertree,
do the rest. Kate knew "mummy's" mind very well--knew how she looked on
herself as sacred because she had been the mother to one child and a
good wife to one husband. She was all swathed around in the
chiffon-sentiment of good Victoria's day. She didn't worry about being a
"consumer" merely. None of the disturbing problems that were shaking
femininity disturbed her calm. She was "a lady," the "wife of a
professional man." It was proper that she should "be well cared for."
She moved by her well-chosen phrases; they were like rules set in a
copybook for her guidance.

Kate seemed to see a moving-picture show of her mother's days. Now she
was pouring the coffee from the urn, seasoning it scrupulously to suit
her lord and master, now arranging the flowers, now feeding the
goldfish; now polishing the glass with tissue paper. Then she answered
the telephone for her husband, the doctor,--answered the door, too,
sometimes. She received calls and paid them, read the ladies' magazines,
and knew all about what was "fitting for a lady." Of course, she had her
prejudices. She couldn't endure Oriental rugs, and didn't believe that
smuggling was wrong; at least, not when done by the people one knew and
when the things smuggled were pretty.

Kate, who had the spirit of the liberal comedian, smiled many times
remembering these things. Then she sighed, for she realized that her
ability to see these whimsicalities meant that she and her mother were,
after all, creature