More interesting to me at the moment are some appearances already fairly familiar, yet new in garb and situation. The young woman in new lights and new places has a natural fascination. I realized this vividly one day in the hotel of a Western city, when I became conscious that an unusual guest had arrived. She was a sturdy young woman, yet delicate of feature, with a mild, undismayed blue eye. She came swinging into the hotel, a darkey lad at her russet shoe heels with a telescope bag. She herself carried a sleek yellow satchel which she placed in front of the desk. She wrote her name in a firm, small hand, took a heap of letters handed to her by the clerk, and dropped into a near-by chair to open several of them with a quick flip of her gloved finger. In no way was she radically dressed. Her tailor-made suit was of a fine cloth, richly trimmed. Her clothes, like her manner, had not an unnecessary touch. Later, I saw her interviewing the porter, who presently was rolling three large sample trunks into one of those first floor rooms provided by certain hotels for the use of drummers, whose goods for display cannot well be taken upstairs. I saw her come in at different times with three different shopkeepers, and others came, evidently by appointment, to inspect many rolls of carpet which soon littered the display room. [Illustration: Thanksgiving Day: Old Style] [Illustration: Thanksgiving Day: New Style] “She’s a trump!” muttered the clerk, with an admiring glance across the corridor; “the best drummer Warp & Woof ever had. She succeeded one of their New York men, and she beat his orders by forty thousand dollars the first year. And there’s no fooling about her either. She doesn’t try to mesmerize the customers, though she’s pretty enough to do that if she cared to. She simply makes them want the goods, and she sells so square that she doesn’t have any trouble coming back to the same people.” “Is she a single woman?” I asked. Something in this inquiry amused the clerk. Then he said: “Well, they say she’s engaged to a drummer for Felt, Feathers & Co., and that if they ever manage to get into Chicago at the same time they will get married.” One day in mid-Missouri a lean, brown, bare-footed boy was driving me across country to a railway station. Suddenly the boy said: “We ain’t goin’ t’ have no dog show.” “No?” The boy shook his head. Presently he added: “And that girl’s dead sore on this town.” “What girl?” I demanded. The boy turned to me with a look of incredulity. “Didn’t you see ’er?” “You don’t mean that girl in the blue dress that was at the hotel breakfast this morning?” “That’s her, yes.” I remembered that she had very dark eyes, and no color; that she wore an Alpine hat and a neat gown, that she looked straight before her with an almost sullen expression when she spoke to the waiter.