Emma Barton looked at Lottie curiously, with much the same glance that she bestowed upon the girls who came before her each morning. "What do you need to keep you happy, Lottie?" Lottie did not hesitate a moment. "Work that's congenial; books; music occasionally; a picnic in the woods; a five-mile hike, a well-fitting suit, a thirteen-dollar corset, Charley--I didn't mean to place her last. She should be up at the beginning somewhere." "How about this superstition they call love?" inquired Winnie Steppler. Lottie shrugged her shoulders. Winnie persisted. "There must have been somebody, some time." "Well, when I was seventeen or eighteen--but there never was anything serious about it, really. Since then--you wouldn't believe how rarely women of my type meet men--interesting men. You have to make a point of meeting them, I suppose. And I've been here at home. I'm thirty-three. Not bad looking. I've kept my figure, and hair, and skin. Walking, I suppose. The men I know are snuffy bachelors nearing fifty, or widowers with three children. They'd rather go to a musical show than a symphony concert; they'll tell you they do enough walking in their business. I don't mind their being bald--though why should they be?--but I do mind their being snuffy. I suppose there are men of about my own age who like the things I like; whose viewpoint is mine. But attractive men of thirty-five marry girls of twenty. I don't want to marry a boy of twenty; but neither can I work up any enthusiasm for a man of fifty who tells me that what he wants is a home, and who would no more take a tramp in the country for enjoyment than he would contemplate a trip to Mars." Emma Barton interposed. "What were you doing at twenty-five?" Lottie glanced around the room. Her hand came out in a little gesture that included the house and its occupants. "Just what I'm doing now. But not even thinking about it--as I do now! I think I had an idea I was important. Now that I look back on it, it seems to me I've just been running errands for the last ten years or more. Running errands up and down, while the world has gone by."