Stella had a streak of common sense in her, and she didn’t leave it entirely to the magic power of the brown spot upon her neck to bring about the brilliant marriage. After providing herself with a few possible candidates for the marriage, the enterprising Stella spent long laborious hours making the yard surrounding the red cottage attractive, with morning-glory vines and wild-cucumber; and built herself a little temple that was very becoming to her type of beauty; and when the young men from the technical school came, in their clean collars, and dark suits, with beautiful creases down the front legs of their trousers, to call on Miss Martin, she usually chanced to be sitting in her little shrine. Therefore, during the spring and summer and early fall these young men seldom caught a glimpse of her mother in the ugly mouse-colored wrapper and flat shoes shuffling about in the kitchen, washing dishes, or mixing bread. They never had a chance to discover that the red cottage lacked a dining-room. Later, after Stella’s charms had worked their blinding enchantment, it was her theory that the skeletons inside the house were less to be feared.

5

THE FIRST NIGHT that Stephen Dallas went to see Stella she exerted herself more than usual in behalf of her caller, for though he was one of the spurned Cataract Mill employees, she was aware that he was far ahead of the technical school students of her acquaintance, as to requirements for a brilliant marriage, as the technical school students were far ahead of the Cataract Village young men.

Stella had an eye for details. This Mr. Dallas, she observed, wasn’t too spick-and-span. He didn’t look as if he had just stepped out of the barber’s shop around the corner, and he didn’t smell so. His cheeks didn’t shine. His collars didn’t shine, and his clothes seemed to have been worn by him long enough to fit naturally into his lines, instead of retaining those of the wax dummy’s with the black mustaches in the gentlemen’s furnishings shop on the corner of Main and Webster Streets downtown. When he leaned forward his waistcoat (but Stella called it vest) clung to him, instead of sticking out and making caves and caverns, in which glimpses of lining and suspenders could be seen; and straight across the vest, rather low-down, where it wrinkles a little (just where it ought to wrinkle when a man leans forward), Stella observed the slender watch-chain made of gold and platinum shafts, linked together.

She observed, too, Mr. Dallas’s handkerchief. He had pulled it out of his pocket and offered it to her to sit on, when she insisted upon occupying the low step of the summer-house. She had taken it from him just to feel it. It was made of finest linen. It had a narrow hemstitched edge, and hand-embroidered letters in the corner.