black bonnet, with a wide surcingle of ribbon tied under her chin,
was ornamented with a sort of centerpiece built of rigid
artificial fruit and flowers. Her hair, in brave defiance of
current styles, was rolled into a high pompadour. Beneath that
pompadour, however, her face was aglow with interest and her eyes
gleamed almost as brightly as did the brand-new lavalliere and the
bar pin with its huge six-carat center diamond.

If the mother's appearance was unusual, the daughter's was
startling, what with her size and the barbaric latitude of color
she had indulged herself in. Allegheny's get-up screamed. In the
general store at Cisco, whence it had originated, it had doubtless
been considered a sport costume, for there was a skirt of huge
blue and white checks, a crepe waist of burnt orange, and over
that a vegetable-silk sweater, with the broadest, greenest stripes
Gray had ever seen. A violent, offensive green, it was; and the
sweater was too tight. Her hat was large and floppy and adorned
with preposterous purple blooms; one of her hands was gloved, but
upon the other she wore her splendid solitaire. She "shone" it, as
a watchman shines his flashlight.

They were enough to daunt a stronger man than Calvin Gray, these
two. He could well imagine the sensation he and they would create in
the lobby of the modish Ajax. But his first surprise was succeeded by
a gentle pity, for Ma Briskow greeted him rapturously, and in
Allegheny's somber eyes he detected a look of mingled suffering and
defiance. She knew, somehow or other, that she was conspicuous,
grotesque, and her soul was in agony at the knowledge. Before he had
spoken a half dozen words to her, Gray realized that this girl was in
torture, and that it had required a magnificent courage on her part to