"Yes, of course," Catherine answered, absently. Too far such a day, she supposed, to go down to her old market. That restaurant had changed hands again; a man behind the large window was even then drawing outlines for new gilt letters. The same hairdresser, the same idle manicure girl, intent on her own fingers, the drug store. They crossed the street, their feet wobbling over the cobblestones, slipping through the guttered water. There they were, at the market. "Where's the kitty?" demanded Marian, her eyes bright in her rose-tanned face. "Kitty?" Catherine weighed the oranges in her fingers, and looked about for a clerk. "Why, yes, Muvver. That little gray kitty----" "He'd probably be grown into an old gray alley cat by this time." Catherine frowned a little over her list. She should have come out earlier; everything looked wilted, picked over. Vitamins, calories, and the budget. The old dreary business of managing decently, reasonably. The country and a garden of your own did spoil you for these dejected pyramids. "There's another thing," she thought, as she watched the clerk hunt for a satisfying head of lettuce, stripping off brownish, slimy leaves. "When can I market, if I am downtown at nine? Perhaps this Miss Kelly can do it, with Letty, as I always have done." A swift picture of Letty in her go-cart, herself with the basket hanging from the handle. Marketing had been her most intellectual pursuit. Back to the meat counter, with its rows of purplish fowls, their feathered heads languishing on their trussed wings, and the butcher, wiping his hands on the apron spotted and taut over his paunch. Marian, her eyes round and black, watched him sharpen his knife, while Spencer lingered near the door. Spencer didn't, as he said, like dead things. Neither did Catherine, shivering as the butcher shoved aside the quivering lump of purplish-black liver. Queer, the forms that the demands of ordinary living took; forms you never dreamed of, when you entered living. "We should have brought two baskets!" Catherine looked at the bundles. "Send 'em over, lady?" "It's so late." "I can carry some, Moth-er." Spencer came back from his post at the door. Marian had the bag of oranges under her arm, Spencer the basket, Catherine a huge bag of varied contents. A scramble at the door to open the three umbrellas, and they started up the street, the wind gusty at their heels. "Be careful crossing the street," warned Catherine. Marian, darting ahead, reached the curb, slipped, and sat down plump in a puddle, the oranges rolling off, bright spots on the wet cobblestones. Marian, dismayed, sat still, her mouth puckered. Catherine pulled her to her feet with a hand abrupt, almost harsh. The throbbing behind her temples which had begun the day before, in the steady drive of closing the house and getting off, had increased to a heavy drum. "Pick them up," she said. "Don't stand there like a ninny!"