Cora dressed in the extreme of fashion, badgering Dan for advance style sheets and asking him to order things for her for which she could not pay, wearing them about with a selfconscious mannikin air. When orange silk stockings and white kid boots were the vogue, Cora stepped forth in the most blazing of orange stockings and the snowiest of white kid boots, her skirts just reaching below the knee. When the matter was mentioned to her mother, she said with a weak smirk that Cora was her pa all over again. Every one said if she could have the training she would make a great actress. Birge’s Corners, having had one genius develop in its humble and unappreciative midst, frowned upon this suggestion—it is not always the most pleasing nor convenient event to have a genius arise from one’s backyard! “I guess Cora will marry well,” Mrs. Spooner used to say, “so I don’t mind doing the work and keeping her hands white—have you ever noticed them? Dear me, I should think Mrs. Birge would keep a maid instead of slaving so. Cora says she works like a little Turk. They say he has a lot of money.... I wish there were some brothers in his family.” So Cora went her selfish way, awaiting the arrival of a rich bachelor who was to besiege her with attentions. She used to prey on Lorraine’s sympathy and lack of experience by her tales of being misunderstood and abused. Cora was shrewd in shallow fashion, highly emotional, jealous, small-minded and given to extreme views of anything which happened to appeal to her for the moment. She was a bad asset to the village since she could arouse discontent and rebellion quickly among her associates. She had a way of unsettling every one and then withdrawing from the situation without leaving a solution. The neighbors said she raged and fought with her mother over the question of money and that she always came out victor. In public, she was devotion itself, although she was ashamed of her mother’s appearance and managed to keep her in the house most of the time. “Mamma has heart trouble” was her tender explanation, although mamma was probably ironing ruffled petticoats or cleaning white kid boots at the very moment Cora pensively explained the maternal maladies! Lorraine regarded Cora as a story-book sort of person, marvelling at her daring and style. Cora openly had tried to bewitch Dan and, being curtly shown she was of no more consequence than Mr. Toots, began systematically and painstakingly to “knock” him to every one except his wife. “Poor little Lorraine—little slave, she is—I go to see her because I’m so sorry for her, yes, he’s terribly mean—oh, _awful_! I’ve heard some things, but of course it wouldn’t be right to repeat them,” and so on, all the time borrowing Lorraine’s pin money and eating up her dinners, riding in her car and making Lorraine introduce her to every man, married or unmarried, who stopped over in the village long enough to visit the Birges.