Van de Vere's was my great chance. It was indeed my pot of gold. I had always loved beautiful things, and here I was in the midst of their creating! Heaven had been kind. The joy of waking in the morning to a day of congenial work, setting forth to labor that was constructing for me a trade of my own, was like a daily tonic. I was very happy, full of ambition. I used to lie awake nights planning how I could make myself able and efficient. I discovered a course I could take evenings in Design and Interior Architecture, and I took advantage of it. I read volumes at the library on period furniture and decorating. I haunted antique shops. I perused articles on good salesmanship. Mornings I was up with the birds (the pigeons, that is) and half-way to my place of business by eight o'clock. It agreed with me. I grew fat on it. I regained the pounds of flesh that I had lost at the hospital with prodigious speed. Color came back to my cheeks, song to my lips. Esther's book actually towered. It wasn't necessary for her to keep her position in the publishing house any longer. It wasn't necessary for her to conceal from me the price of our room. My salary was generous, and with Esther's little income we were rich indeed. We could drink all the egg-nogs we wanted to. We could even fare on chicken and green vegetables occasionally. We could buy one of Rosa's paintings for twenty-five dollars, and lend fifteen, now and then, if one of the girls was in a tight place. We could afford to canvass for suffrage for nothing. We could engage a bungalow for two or three weeks at the sea next year. As soon as I felt that my success at Van de Vere's was assured, I wrote to my family and asked them to drop in and see me. The first of the family to arrive was Edith, one day in February. Isabel, the maid, announced Mrs. Alexander Vars to me. I sent down for her to come up. The second floor of Van de Vere's looks almost like a private house--a dining-room with a fine old sideboard, bedroom hung with English chintz, a living-room with books and low lamps--sample rooms, of course, all of them, but with very little of the atmosphere of shop or warehouse. I met Edith in the living-room. "Hello, Edith," I said. She looked just the same, very modish, in some brand-new New York clothes, I suppose. "Toots!" she exclaimed, and put both arms about me and kissed me. Then to cover up a little sign of mistiness in her eyes that would show, she exclaimed, "You're just as good-looking as ever. I declare you are!" "So are you, too, Edith!" I said, misty-eyed, too, for some reason. I had fought, bled and died with Edith once. "Oh, no, I'm not. I've got a streak of gray right up the front." "Really? Well, it doesn't show one bit," I quavered, and then, "It's terribly good to see some one from home." Edith got out her handkerchief. "I, for one, just hate squabbles," she announced. And "So do I," I agreed. Later we sat down together on the sofa. She looked around curiously.