Aunt Emma was the widow of the son who had died a drunkard; and to her also prosperity had come late in life. Dad set no limits—the ladies charged anything they wanted, and even drew checks on Dad’s account. So Aunt Emma went to the fanciest shops and got herself raiment, and went out to uphold the prestige of the Ross family in the town or city where they were staying. There were ladies’ clubs, and Aunt Emma would attend their functions, and listen to impressive personalities who rose and said, “Madam Chairman,” and read papers on the Feminine Element in Shakespeare’s Plays, and the Therapeutic Value of Optimism, and What Shall We Do for Our Youth? Once every month the two ladies gave a tea-party, and Dad always managed to be “spudding in” a new well, or seeing to a difficult job of “cementing off” on that afternoon. Aunt Emma particularly patronized the drug-store counters where they sold cosmetics, and she knew by name the fashionable young ladies who presided there; also she knew the names of the latest products they handled, pronouncing these names in quite naive and shameless American—“Roodge finn dee Theeayter” and “Pooder der Reeze ah lah corbeel flurry”—which, it must be added, was the only way she could have got the sales-ladies to know what she meant. Her dressing-table was covered with rows of delicate little boxes and jars and bottles, containing paints and powders and perfumes and beauty clays and enamels, and she alone knew what else. One of Bunny’s earliest memories was of Aunt Emma, perched on a chair, looking like an enlarged parokeet in a harness. She was only half dressed, paying no attention to him, because he was so little; so he observed how she was laced and strapped up in armor—tight corsets and dress-shields and side-garters and tightly laced little boots. She sat, erect and serious, putting things on her cheeks and eye-brows, and dabbing herself with little puffs of pink and white powder; and at the same time telling Bunny about her husband, deceased many years ago. He had had many virtues, in spite of his one tragic weakness; he had had a kind heart, so sweet and generous—“yes, yes,” said Aunt Emma, “he was a good little man; I wonder where he is now.” And then, dab, dab, she was patting the tears away from her cheeks and making them pink again! VI