She was the sort of woman whose exterior was never slack or hasty. She was never guilty of substituting a pin for a stitch where it showed, but her negligees and night-clothes were always in a state of neglect and shabbiness. Even Laurel had begun to observe that. The first time Laurel had exclaimed, shocked, “Why, Mother, there’s the same hole in the toe of your stocking that was there yesterday!” Mrs. Dallas had smiled. How like her father she was! Stephen had had the same foolish blind dislike for a hole, or a rip, or a missing button, which nobody was ever going to see.

Wrapped in her unlovely draperies, Mrs. Dallas now scuffed across the little room to the cheap oak bureau.

“Darn this thing!” she murmured, as she fumbled with the back-boneless mirror, which always needed a wad of paper or a hairbrush stuck in its side to hold it in position. “My! What a sight I am!” she exclaimed, when finally the contrary thing consented to give her back her reflection. “I certainly am some beauty at seven o’clock in the morning,” she laughed, and she put both of her hands to her head, pushing down the stiff tow-like material sticking out in a wild ungainly fashion about her face. Then, raising her chin, and frowning a little, she stroked her throat once or twice, where there hung, flabby and inert this morning, an unmistakable double chin.

It was a fitful sort of double chin. Showed much more at times than at others. Seemed to have periods of being sulky and stubborn. Mrs. Dallas was always in a state of indecision as to whether the thing showed less with a low, loose collar, or a high, tight one. This indecision was felt only in connection with daytime costumes, however, for at night in evening-dress she had long ago concluded that the lower the gown the less noticeable the superfluous chin. Once you got below the Dutch neck-line, Mrs. Dallas’s skin was as white and firm as a young girl’s. She had always had a beautiful neck and shoulders, and they didn’t grow old and sallow along with her face.

Mrs. Dallas believed that if a woman was clever, and made enough of that feature of hers which chanced to have remained young, whether it was hair, or figure, or complexion, or neck-and-shoulders, defects and blemishes would become less obvious. Unfortunate, of course, that convention deemed that her “young” feature could be exhibited only at night. Still, she told herself, she should be thankful that such inventions as powder and paint existed, corsets, and curling-irons, electric massages, and electric needles. For she had a horror of growing old and unattractive—a horror connected with memories of her own mother.