reveal to her sister the dazzling world of shops in New York: shops
large and small, American, French and English, shops for gowns and hats
and shoes, and furs and gloves and corsets. At numberless counters they
studied and counselled, and lunching at Sherry's they shopped on. And
the shimmer and sheen of pretty things made life a glamourous mirage, in
which Ethel could feel herself rapidly becoming a New Yorker, gaining
assurance day by day, feeling "her type" emerge in the glass where she
studied herself with impatient delight.

There were little reminders now and then of what she had left behind
her. One day in a department store, as they stood before a counter
looking at silk stockings, all at once to Ethel's ears came the deep
tones of an organ, and turning with a low cry of surprise she looked
over the bustling throngs of women to an organ loft above, where a girl
was singing a solo in a high sweet soprano voice. In a flash to Ethel's
mind there came a vivid picture of the old yellow church at home. And
with a queer expression looking about her at the crowds, she exclaimed,
"How funny!" She was again reminded of church when one afternoon in a
large darkened chamber she sat with scores of women whose eyes were
fixed as though in devotion upon a softly lighted stage where "models"
kept appearing. What lovely figures some of them had. Others rather
took her breath, and gave her the feeling she'd had before in her
sister's bedroom. But then as her eye was caught again by the rapt
faces all about, she chuckled to herself and thought, "There ought to be
candles and incense here!"

She was appalled at the prices. And as the exciting days wore on,
uneasily in her room at night she would sit down with pencil and paper
and ask, "How much did I spend today?" Her father had left her nothing
but the shabby old frame house. This she had sold to a friend of his,