osed her eyes. There
was still the illusion of a purr about her. Probably because, as her
kitten warmed in its circle, its coziness began to whir mountingly.
The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from
Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat
as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. Presently Hattie began to tiptoe. The
seventy-two jars were untopped now, in a row on a board over the built-in
washtub. Seventy-two yawning for content. Squnch! Her enormous spoon
into the copper kettle and flop, gurgle, gooze, softly into the jars.
One--two--three--At the sixty-eighth, Marcia, without stirring or
lifting her lids, spoke into the sucky silence.

"Momie?"

"Yes, Marcy."

"You'll be glad."

Hattie, pausing at the sixty-eighth, "Why, dear?"

"I came home in Nonie Grosbeck's automobile. I'm invited to a dinner
dance October the seventeenth. At their house in Gramercy Park."

The words must have gone to Hattie's knees, because, dropping a spat of
mulatto cold cream on the linoleum, she sat down weakly on the kitchen
chair that she had painted blue and white to match the china cereal set
on the shelf above it.

"Marcy!"

"And she likes me better than any girl in school, momie, and I'm to
be her chum from to-day on, and not another girl in school is invited
except Edwina Nelson, because her father's on nearly all the same boards
of directors with Mr. Grosbeck, and--"

"Marcia! Marcia! and you came home from school just as if nothing had
happened! Child, sometimes I think you're made of ice."

"Why, I'm glad, momie."

But that's what there were, little ice glints of congealed satisfaction
in Marcia's eyes.

"Glad," said Hattie, the word full of tears. "Why, honey, you don't
realize it, but this is the beginning! This is the meaning of my
struggle to get you into Miss Harperly's school. It wasn't easy. I've
never told you the--strings I had to pull. Conservative people, you see.
That's what the Grosbecks are, too. Home people. The kind who can afford
to wear dowdy hats and who have lived in the same house for thirty
years."

"Nome's mother was born in the house they live in."

"Substantial people, who half-sole their shoes and endow colleges.
Taxpayers. Policyholders. Church members. Oh, Marcia, those are the safe
people!"

"There's a Grosbeck memorial window in the Rock Church."

"I used to be so afraid for you, Marcy. Afraid you would take to the
make-believe