But anyway, Cousin Eunice and Bertha hadn't been together two days before they hated each other so they wouldn't use the same powder rag! They just couldn't bear the sight of each other because they could both bear the sight of Rufe so well. This was a disappointment to me, for I had hoped they would go into each other's rooms at night and brush their hair, half undressed, and have as good a time as the pictures of ladies in underwear catalogues always seem to be having. But they are not at all friendly. They have never even asked each other what make of corsets they wear, nor who operated on them for appendicitis. Bertha talks a great deal about Rufe and how devoted he was to her last summer, but Cousin Eunice won't talk at all when Bertha's around. She sits still and looks dumb and superior as a trained nurse does when you are trying to find out what it is that the patient has got. Cousin Eunice has a right to act superior, though, for while other girls are spending their time embroidering chafing-dish aprons she is studying books written by a man with a name like a sneeze. Let me get one of the books to see how it is spelled. N-i-e-t-z-s-c-h-e! There! I got it down at last! And Cousin Eunice doesn't have just a plain parlor at home to receive her beaux in; she has a studio. A studio is a room full of things that catch dust. And the desire of her life is to write a little brown-backed book that people will fill full of pencil marks and always carry around with them in their suit-cases. She doesn't neglect her outside looks, though, just because her mind is so full of great thoughts. No indeed! Her fountain pen jostles against her looking-glass in her hand-bag, and her note-book gets dusted over with pink powder. Now, Bertha is entirely different! No matter how the sun is shining outside she spends all her mornings up in her room shining her finger-nails; and she wears _pounds_ and _pounds_ of hair on the back of her head. Father says the less a girl has on the inside the more she will stick on the outside of her head, and lots of men can't tell the difference. Bertha certainly isn't at a loss for lovers. She gets a great many letters from a "commercial traveler." A "commercial traveler" is a man who writes to his girl on different hotel paper every day. These letters are a great comfort to her spirit when Rufe acts so loving around Cousin Eunice; and she always has one sticking in her belt when Rufe is near by, with the name of the hotel showing. Every night just before or just after supper I always go out to the kitchen and tell Mammy Lou all the news I've seen or heard that day. She laughs when I tell her about how Bertha is trying to hold on to Rufe.