"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say,
challengingly, to Nellie.

"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half
years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets
away with it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman
silly enough to work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven
yards of taffeta and a Butterick pattern is a fool!"

Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be
quite charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might
not be Mrs. Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide
this point, and now Mrs. Flint was not at home.

As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to
wonder just who _would_ be home at the Flint establishment. And she
thought suddenly of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had
seen fit to give the fact that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this
stage she became lost in discovering so many points of contact between
Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. Then the train started with a
quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening landscape claimed her
utterly.

Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the
countryside unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a
train. And to-night the quick close of the December day warned her to
make the most of her opportunity. The wind was whipping the upper
reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and the water in turn was
beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in gray, futile