It was a principle of Mrs. Bing to agree with J. Patterson. And why not? He was a great man. She knew it as well as he did and that was knowing it very well indeed. His judgment about many things had been right--triumphantly and overwhelmingly right. Besides, it was the only comfortable thing to do. She had been the type of woman who reads those weird articles written by grass widows on "How to Keep the Love of a Husband." So it happened that the Bings began to construct a little god to suit their own tastes and habits--one about as tractable as a toy dog. They withdrew from the Congregational Church and had house parties for sundry visitors from New York and Hazelmead every week-end. Phyllis returned from school in May with a spirit quite in harmony with that of her parents. She had spent the holidays at the home of a friend in New York and had learned to love the new dances and to smoke, although that was a matter to be mentioned only in a whisper and not in the presence of her parents. She was a tall, handsome girl with blue eyes, blonde hair, perfect teeth and complexion, and almost a perfect figure. Here she was, at last, brought up to the point of a coming-out party. It had been a curious and rather unfortunate bringing up that the girl had suffered. She had been the pride of a mother's heart and the occupier of that position is apt to achieve great success in supplying a mother's friends with topics of conversation. Phyllis had been flattered and indulged. Mrs. Bing was entitled to much credit, having been born of poor and illiterate parents in a small village on the Hudson a little south of the Capital. She was pretty and grew up with a longing for better things. J. Patterson got her at a bargain in an Albany department store where she stood all day behind the notion counter. "At a bargain," it must be said, because, on the whole, there were higher values in her personality than in his. She had acquired that common Bertha Clay habit of associating with noble lords who lived in cheap romances and had a taste for poor but honest girls. The practical J. Patterson hated that kind of thing. But his wife kept a supply of these highly flavored novels hidden in the little flat and spent her leisure reading them. One of the earliest recollections of Phyllis was the caution, "Don't tell father!" received on the hiding of a book. Mrs. Bing had bought, in those weak, pinching times of poverty, extravagant things for herself and the girl and gone in debt for them. Collectors had come at times to get their money with impatient demands.