She could recall that twenty years ago her mother had been gray and shapeless, her face covered with light brown moth-spots, wrinkles, and long hairs here and there—a spiritless creature, who wore loose, mouse-colored wrappers and flat men’s shoes. Stella Dallas (Stella Martin she was then) was ashamed to have her young men friends catch a glimpse of her mother when they came to call in the red cottage house in Cataract Village outside the city of Milhampton. Laurel should never be ashamed of her mother like that, before her young men friends, Mrs. Dallas decided, not if a little thought and effort could prevent it. Besides, there was another reason for keeping up a young appearance.

Not for eight years had she laid eyes upon her husband, nor he upon her, as far as she knew. It hardly seemed possible, for she had been to New York often, and the hotels where she and Laurel summered were very likely places for automobile parties to spend a day and night. Stephen might walk right into the office or dining-room or parlor any day where she chanced to be seated. If he should, he simply mustn’t find her too changed. He mustn’t find an old woman in place of the unquestionable belle she had been in their set the fall his business took him to New York.

The elaborate process of her mother’s dressing had great interest for Laurel. Sometimes she would watch it from the bed, and other times from a chair near by, sitting, bare-necked and bare-armed in her underclothes with the comb and brush in her hand, waiting for her mother to unroll the eight tight wads around her head, and make them into long, loose curls.

She had a long while to wait, for it took her mother a long while to dress. Laurel would pop into her clothes in no time, her slim pipe-stem arms and legs simply flashing into the right places, and her quick fingers buttoning and fastening with lightning speed. Laurel worked like a machine when she dressed. Her mother worked like an artist, whose effects are accomplished by many fine and careful strokes, and many stops, standing away frequently from her work to observe it with a critical and often a dissatisfied eye.