"Too true, too true," she drawled; "and if she dusted the furniture a week or so with that fan, I'm afraid it would lose more or less of its--gloss. Mamma quite prides herself upon the delicate peach-fuzz-bloom, so to speak, of those feathers. Just look at them!" The girl reached over and took the fan from her mother's lap. She spread the fine plumes to their fullest capacity, and held them under the rays of the brass lamp that stood near their guest. Then she made a flourish with it in the direction of the music stand, as if she were intent upon whisking the last speck of dust from the sheets of Tannhauser that lay on its top A little cry of alarm and protest escaped Mrs. Foster's lips and she stretched oat her hand to rescue the beloved fan. "Gertrude! how can you?" She settled back comfortably against the cushions of the low divan with her rescued treasure once more waving in gentle gracefulness before her. "Oh, no," she protested. "Of course one could not work or live constantly in one or two gowns and look fresh, but one could look and be clean and--and whole. A patch is not pretty I admit, but it is a decided improvement upon a bare elbow." "I don't agree with you at all," smiled her guest; "I don't believe I ever saw a patch in all my life that would be an improvement upon--upon--" He glanced at the lovely round white arms before him, and all three laughed. Mrs. Foster thought of how many Russian baths and massage treatments had tended to give the exquisite curve and tint to her arm. "Then beside," smiled Mr. Martin, "a rent or hole may be an immediate accident, liable to happen to the best of us. A patch looks like premeditated poverty." Gertrude laughed brightly, but her mother did not appear to have heard. She reverted to the previous insinuation. "Oh, well; that is not fair! You know what I mean. I'm talking of elbows that burst or wear out--not about those that never were intended to be in. Then, besides, it is not the elbow I object to; it is the hole one sees it through. _It_ tells a tale of shiftlessness and personal untidiness that saps all sympathy for the poverty that compelled the long wearing of the garment." "Why, my dear Mrs. Foster," said Martin, slowly, "I wonder if you have any idea of a grade of poverty that simply can't be either whole or clean. Did--?" "I'll give up the whole, but I won't give in on the clean. I can easily see how a woman could be too tired, too ill, or too busy to mend a garment; I can fancy her not knowing how to sew, or not having thread, needles, and patches; but, surely, surely, Mr. Martin, no one living is too poor to keep clean. Water is free, and it doesn't take long to take a bath. Besides--" Gertrude looked at her mother with a smile. Then she said with her sarcastic little drawl again:-- "Russian, or Turkish?" "Well, but fun' and nonsense aside, Gertrude," said her mother, "a plain hot bath at home would make a new creature out of half the wretches one sees or reads of, and--"