On this particular March day the elf was proving obstreperous. An afternoon spent indoors talking to women of her own age and position was likely to affect Lottie Payson thus. Walking fleetly along now, she decided that she hated spending afternoons; that they were not only spent but squandered. Beck Schaefer had taken the others home in her electric. Lottie, seized with a sudden distaste for the glittering enameled box with its cut-glass cornucopia for flowers (artificial), its gray velvet upholstery and tasseled straps, had elected to walk, though she knew it would mean being late. "Figger?" Beck Schaefer had asked, settling her own plump person in the driver's seat. "Air," Lottie had answered, not altogether truthfully; and drew a long breath. She turned away from the curb. The electric trundled richly off, its plate-glass windows filled with snugly tailored shoulders, furs, white gloves, vivid hats. Lottie held a hand high in farewell, palm out, as the gleaming vehicle sped silently away, lurched fatly around a corner, and was gone. So she strode home now, through the early evening mist, the zany March wind buffeting her skirts--no, skirt: it is 1916 and women are knicker-bockered underneath instead of petticoated--and the fishy smell that was Lake Michigan in March; the fertilizer smell that was the Stockyards when the wind was west; and the smoky smell that was soft coal from the I. C. trains and a million unfettered chimneys, all blending and mellowing to a rich mixture that was incense to her Chicago-bred nostrils. She was walking rapidly and thinking clearly, if disconnectedly: "How we lied to each other this afternoon! Once or twice, though, we came nearer the truth than was strictly comfortable.... Beck's bitter.... There! I forgot Celia's recipe for that icebox cake after all.... Beck's legs ... I never saw such--uh--tumultuous legs ... gray silk stockings ought to be prohibited on fat legs; room seemed to be full of them.... That's a nice sunset. I'd love to go over to the lake just for a minute.... No, guess I'd better not with the folks coming to dinner.... People always saying Chicago's ugly when it's really.... Of course the Loop is pretty bad.... Tomorrow'd be a good day to go downtown and look at blue serges ... a tricotine I think.... I wonder if mother will want to go.... I do hope this once...." Here Lottie drew a deep breath; the kind of breathing that relieves stomach nerves. She was so sure that mother would want to go. She almost always did. Here we are, striding briskly along with Lottie Payson, while great-aunt Charlotte, a wistful black-silk figure, lingers far behind. We are prone to be impatient of black-silk figures, quite forgetting that they once were slim and eager white young figures in hoop-skirts that sometimes tilted perilously up behind, displaying an unseemly length of frilled pantalette. Great-aunt Charlotte's skirts had shaped the course of her whole life.