It had come to her, right out of nowhere, as one’s best thoughts always come, that the thing to do with that black, fur-trimmed velours-de-laine cloak was to sell it to Mrs. Prouty in place of the fur coat which she coveted so and couldn’t possibly afford. It would actually, honestly, look better on Mrs. Prouty’s too-rounded dumpy figure than the fur coat. Her conviction was instantly warm! The earnest words came rushing to her lips. She heard herself saying fervently, “You see, Mrs. Prouty, a fur coat has no _line_. The only people who look well in one are the flat, long, bean-pole variety. But a well-cut, well-tailored coat like this ... just see how that flat, strap trimming carries the eye up and down and doesn’t add to the bulk. And those great fur cuffs and collar give all the _richness_ of the fur coat without the....” Oh, she knew she could do it! She could just see Mrs. Prouty’s wistful eyes brightening, her anxious face softening into satisfaction and content. And what a feather in her cap if she could be the one to work off that unsalable cloak! PART THREE Chapter 11 In the hurly-burly of the rearrangement of life, nobody had been able to pay much attention to Stephen, and he had reveled in this freedom from supervision. He had always steered his small, hard life on a line of his own, a line he strove to make parallel to the course of the rest of the family, and never intersecting. Contact with others always meant trouble in Stephen’s experience--except with Henry and Helen. Now that the grown-ups had almost forgotten his existence, he was enjoying life as never before, under his dirty, crumpled rompers, stiff with spilled egg-yolk and cold bacon grease. His father’s accident had made no impression on his emotions. Events that did not touch Stephen personally never made any impression on his emotions. The only element in the new situation which interested him was that Mother seemed to have forgotten all about Teddy. This was important. It made Stephen very glad that Father had fallen off the roof and broken his legs all up, or whatever it was. As long as Father stayed in bed, he couldn’t bother anybody, even when he and Stephen were left alone. * * * * * For, after a time, they were left alone. When the sick man began to improve so that he was conscious, and later, occasionally out of pain, there were hours when the round of volunteer neighbors and helpers thinned out, when he was left in his bed in the dining-room, a glass of water, a book, something to eat and the desk-telephone on a table by his side, with instructions to telephone if he needed anything. “Don’t you hesitate a minute now, Mr. Knapp,” said old Mrs. Hennessy heartily; “if it’s no more than to put a shovelful of coal on the kitchen fire, you call fourteen ring thirty-two and I’ll be right over.”