Ginger took the day train from San Luis Obispo and reached San Francisco in the evening; this, she knew, was an easier time for her aunt to meet her than in the morning. Aunt Fan had a taxi waiting and bundled her delightedly into it. “Dearie, are you simply _dead_? I told the doctor we might join him at Tait’s for a little while, to hear the music and-- But I don’t know--” she broke off, looking at her niece’s costume, and shaking her head. “My dear child, _where_ did you get that dress?” It was a one-piece thing in blue serge of ordinary quality, listlessly trimmed with black braid, and the neck line was just too low and a good deal too high. “In San Luis,” said Ginger, meekly. She was always meek with her aunt on the subject of clothes. “It was only twenty-two fifty.” “It looks it,” said Aunt Fan, briefly. “And that mal-formed hat, and light-topped shoes (there hasn’t been a light-topped shoe worn since the flood!) and brown gloves! _My dear!_” She hailed the chauffeur. “Straight back to the St. Agnes, please.” “I bought all these things ages ago,” said Ginger, humble still, “before I went into mourning. I’ve given all the black stuff to Manuela. I didn’t think it mattered, just for the train.” “My child,” said her aunt with solemn and passionate conviction, “clothes _always_ matter. I wouldn’t be _divorced_ in a dress like that.” She sighed. “How you, with your Spanish blood, can have so little sense of line and color-- Oh, I know you look well enough on the ranch, on a horse--‘Daring Nell, the Cattle Queen’--that sort of thing, but you can’t ride your horse into restaurants and drawing-rooms and theaters, and as soon as you dismount you look like the hired help!” She was heartily angry with her by the time they arrived at the apartment house. No one could fathom why it had been named the St. Agnes; it was a good deal more like the Queen of Sheba. Ginger followed her into Apartment C. It was the first time she had visited her aunt here, and it struck her that it was like the inside of a silk-lined and padded candy box _de luxe_; it was a good deal like Aunt Fan herself. It began to strike Mrs. Featherstone that her niece was turning the other cheek with unprecedented docility. “Look here,” she cried, catching hold of her and turning her face to the light, “let me look at you. What is it? What’s come over you?” She shook her as ’Rome Ojeda had shaken her but with less muscular authority. “What do you want clothes for?” “Because I have only things like this, and--” she was entirely unflurried and direct about it--“because Dean Wolcott, Aleck’s friend, you know, is coming out for a visit.” Aunt Fan studied her thoughtfully. “When’s he coming?” “The twenty-sixth--a week from Saturday.” “Oh, _Lord_!” said her aunt with deep feeling. “How I _do_ detest the country in July! Well, Manuela’ll simply have to bring me a breakfast tray, whether she thinks it immoral or not. I will _not_ get up in the middle of the night.”