inquiring the prices of the lovely pastel-shaded materials she recommended. Reba adopted the dressmaker whom Miss Park suggested with as little question as she did her idol's dentist, doctor, hair-dresser, and bank.
The dressmaker this second time was not, however, Madame Boulangeat. The war had detained the Madame indefinitely in France. ("To my disgust," the clergyman's inquisitive little mother had exclaimed one rainy October day, after a fruitless journey to Madame's closed shop. "I'll never find out about that mysterious little bride now, I suppose, unless I go and look her up in some horrid office, and that is so conspicuous. Robert writes that the groom is talkative about everything except his bride's identity.")
Physical exercise and artistic raiment did do a lot, of course, to bring out Reba's hidden charms; but the knowledge that she was succeeding in her peculiar enterprise, in spite of appalling obstacles—such as age (she was twenty-six now) and disapproval (Aunt Augusta still sniffed) and marriage finally—filled her with a flaming courage that would have beautified her, even if she had kept on tightly pompadouring every morning and crimping on hairpins every night.
Reba had received only three messages from Nathan up to the time of her unexpected return to Boston. These had been postcards, and had been addressed to Mr. James Perkins, President of the Ridgefield Trust Company.
Before their separation Reba had told the sailor to address all communications to Mr. Perkins, for ever since her first call upon the bank-president, Mr. Perkins had shown a disposition to champion her; had
