“I know it won’t be me,” Marcia said stoically. “The middle one never gets took anywhere. It’s always the baby, or Lena because she’s the oldest. The middle one never gets took anywhere.”

Mama weighed the matter gravely, but made up her mind when Aunt Lois reminded her that Florrie would cry all the time and that Lena had just shaved off her eyebrows at Mary Evelyn’s suggestion and looked peculiar. It was luck at last for the middle one. Lena was left to sulkily look after Florrie, and Marcia was fixed up in a new plaid hair-ribbon, Lena’s coat since it had no patches, with white mittens strung through the sleeves for safety. Aunt Lois and Mama did each other’s hair in new ways before the mirror and borrowed each other’s gloves, neck ribbons, belts, and furbelows, convinced that a good time as well as chic depended on the wearing of borrowed trifles. Mama wore her best brown broadcloth with black velvet buttons and a short cape, and Aunt Lois wore a handsome black velveteen with narrow fur edgings at the hem and bodice. They had sachets of flower petals pinned to their underthings and Marcia was allowed a drop of perfume on her handkerchief.

Lena looked after them with a long face, pressing it against the window as they left.

“I’ll probably have a bad earache when you get home,” she predicted. “It hurts bad already.”

They took the five o’clock streetcar to Lesterville, ten miles away. For a long time before they got there, Marcia saw the dark sky illumined with flames like a Fourth of July celebration. These were the steel mills, Mama explained. The car stopped at every other corner to pick up the workers with their dinner pails on their way to or from the mills. Riding past the gates you saw men bare to the waist outlined darkly against brilliant fire of blue or red or white, looking like the saints in stained-glass windows. The men crowded on the car smelled of dirt and sweat and pipe smoke, but more than anything else of power. Marcia withdrew into her mother’s arms, afraid of these silent men, puzzled that her mother and Aunt Lois seemed unaffected by them.

“Mr. Wilson spoke of getting tickets for Colonial Dames at the Lyceum,” said Aunt Lois. “We can take turns holding Marcia on our lap.”

They got off at the White Hotel on the square. It was Marcia’s first trip to Lesterville and the biggest town she’d ever seen, but she did not want people to suspect this, so she took care not to show interest in her surroundings. They went into a palm-decorated corridor, with a marble floor and large leather chairs lining the walls with cuspidors beside them. As they entered, two gentlemen got up and removed their hats with the most gratifying reverence. One was dapper and swarthy with curling black mustaches and luxuriant black curly hair brushed back in a pompadour. He carried a rich brown topcoat over his arm, neatly folded, and wore a flower in his lapel. Marcia was so overcome with the stylishness of this Mr. Wilson that she had only a mild surprise to see that his companion was Mr. Sweeney. Mr. Sweeney bent low over Aunt Lois’s hand, with the solemn dignity of one about to lead in prayer.