She glanced around her, and seeing no one, she slowly walked to the back of the store. Everywhere it was stamped with what Marcia in her soul denominated “skimpiness.” Even the hats that had been conceived in beauty, fell short of culmination because of cheap material, too frugal use of trimming. Pausing near the door that opened into the back room, Marcia looked ahead, and there she saw the form of a small woman, sitting beside a table piled with a disorderly array of wire forms and linings, ribbon and velvet, and glaring autumnal flowers. Her arms were crossed upon the table, her head buried in them, her shoulders shaking with sobs. For one long minute Marcia surveyed the bowed head; then she slowly turned her back and started down the aisle. “Hm-m-m-m,” she said softly. “Two of us. I wonder what’s the matter with her?” She made her way to the front door and opened it; then she closed it with sufficient force to be heard the length of the building, and with firm steps she went toward the back room again. Half the length of the aisle, she leaned on a display case, drumming with her fingers. Without turning her head, from the corner of her eye, she saw the woman in the back room rise and dab frantically at her face with her handkerchief. Presently, she came toward Marcia and asked in a voice she was making visible effort to control: “Was there something?” Marcia looked at her intently. “Drab” was the adjective that sprang to her mind. Hair lacking the lustre of life, skin needing manipulation and the concealments of pink powder, deep facial lines of anxiety, eyes red with futile tears, a disappointed flat chest, rounded shoulders; a woman bilious from improper food and lack of exercise. Marcia smiled brilliantly. The smile was child of the thought that had just occurred to her. Washing might be a disqualifying occupation socially, but the bent back, the rise and fall over the board, the muscular wringing, the stretch to the line in hanging out and taking in, the steaming open of the pores of the face and neck, the exercise on foot, the swing of the iron—washing had no social standing, but daily exercise the round of the year at its exactions never bred a Nancy Bodkin. Marcia could have wrung Nancy like a wet sheet and hung her in the fresh air and sunshine to her great benefit. Suddenly, she was thankful for the steaming and exercise of every muscle of her body that had made and kept her a creature of fresh face and perfect health. “Yes,” she said deliberately to Nancy, “there are a number of things. I wanted to see if I could find a veil. I’m a stranger in town. I came this morning. I intend staying here. I noticed what a good central location you’ve got and I wondered whether you’d like to rent me half of your space and let me do dressmaking—or, maybe, you’d like a partner in the millinery business?” The woman behind the counter stared at Marcia with widely opened eyes while her lower lip drooped. “You—you’re a milliner?” she asked.