ek, then I don't know my own name. Ain't it so, Miss
Sternberger?"

Miss Sternberger ran her smooth hand over the lace shoulder of the gown.
"This is a great seller," she replied, smiling at Mr. Arnheim. "Lillian
Russell is going to wear it in the second act of her new play when she
opens to-morrow night."

"I guess we're slow in here," chuckled Mrs. Schlimberg, nudging Mr.
Arnheim with the point of her elbow.

Miss Sternberger spread the square train of a flame-colored robe full
length on the green carpet and drew back a corner of the hem to display
the lacy avalanche beneath. Then she bowed slightly and turned toward
the door.

Mrs. Schlimberg laid a detaining hand on her sleeve. "Just a minute,
Miss Sternberger. Mr. Arnheim's brought in some models he wants us to
look at."

SOB SISTER

Physics can answer whence goes the candle-flame when it vanishes into
blackness and what becomes of sound when the great maw of silence
digests it. But what science can know the destiny of the pins and pins
and pins, and what is the oblivion which swallows that great army of
street-walking women whose cheeks are too pink and who dwell outside the
barbed-wire fence of respectability?

Let the pins go, unless one lies on the sidewalk point toward you, and
let this be the story of Mae Munroe, herself one of the pink-cheeked
grenadiers of that great army whose destiny is as vague as the destiny
of pins, and who in more than one vain attempt to climb had snagged
her imitation French embroidery petticoats on the outward side of that
barbed-wire fence.

Then, too, in the years that lead up to this moment Mae Munroe had taken
on weight--the fair, flabby flesh of lack of exercise and no lack of
chocolate bonbons. And a miss is as good as a mile, or a barbed-wire
fence, only so long as she keeps her figure down and her diet up. When
Mae Munroe ran for a street-car she breathed through her mouth for the
first six blocks after she caught it. The top button of her shoe was no
longer equal to the span. But her eyes were still blue, rather like sky
when you look straight up; her hair yellow to the roots; and who can
gainsay that a dimple in the chin is not worth two in the cheeks?

In the florid disorder of a red velvet sitting-room cluttered with
morning sunshine and unframed, unsigned photographs of stage favorites,
empty bottles and dented-in cushions, Mae Munroe stirred on her high
mound of red sateen sofa-pillows; placed her