end of the house. A tower swelled out of its front end, and all year
round geraniums and boxed climbing vines bloomed in its three stories.

Across a generous ledge of veranda, more vines grew quite furiously,
reaching their height and then growing down upon themselves. Behind
those vines, and so cunningly concealed by them that not even the white
wrapper could flash through to the passerby, Mrs. I.W. Goldstone, in a
chair that would rock rhythmically with her, loved to sit in the first
dusk of evening, pleasantly idle. A hose twirling on the lawn spun up
the smell of green, abetted by similar whirlings down the wide vista of
adjoining lawns. Occasionally, a prideful and shirt-sleeved landed
proprietor wielded his own hose, flushing the parched sidewalk or
shooting spray against hot bricks that drank in thirstily.

As Mrs. Goldstone rocked she smiled, tilting herself backward off the
balls of her feet. The years had cropped out in her suddenly,
surprisingly, and with a great deal of geniality. The taffy cast to her
hair had backslid to ashes of roses. Uncorseted and in the white
wrapper, she was quite frankly widespread, her hips fitting in tight
between the chair-arms, and her knees wide.

A screen door snapped sharply shut on its spring, Mr. I.W. Goldstone
emerging. There was a great rotundity to his silhouette, the generous
outward curve to his waist-line giving to his figure a swayback
erectness, the legs receding rather short and thin from the bay of
waistcoat.

"Hattie?"

"Here I am, I.W."