and that even if I can't look like a slinky cat, my skin is white and pink and not made that way by a layer of paint." The conductor's call startled her a second time. Then for an instant she closed her eyes. "Dear Lord," she prayed, "make the new dress help to win him back." She was happier at home after that, and even tried to ignore Nina's insolence. She sang when she was working around the house at night, and Nina seeing her thus, welcomed the opportunity for a quarrel. "Saw your boy friend last night with a dame dressed up like a Sheba Queen. What is it? Charles left little Sally in her alley? Naughty boy. Going to take the new lady to the Country Club dance, sister?" "No! Much as it hurts me to inform you, Charles has chosen me to accompany him." "Oh! Going to give you a little paradise before he settles down with the blonde?" "Get out of here!" Sally's face was livid with rage, and even Nina retreated before her. a little frightened at seeing her sister in this mood. The three of them were silent at breakfast in the morning. That night Sally went for her dress. "I'd like to try it on again before I take it," she told the modiste. "Yes, certainly, mademoiselle-permit me!" The dress was slipped over her shoulders and deftly smoothed and fitted in place by the dressmaker. "Charming," murmured the woman in all sincerity. "You are a dream." The lovely flame of soft, clinging chiffon hung gracefuly long in a perfect flare. The waist was ingeniously contrived to resemble two huge triangles fitted into each other. The dress was a miracle in framing her face, enhancing the color of her skin, and contrasting with her dark hair. "I'll take it now." She removed the dress carefully and laid it in the hands of the modiste, who wrapped it in the sheets of white tissue paper and laid it in a long box. Sally took the box in her arms and left the shop in a dream. "He'll forget her when he sees me. The dress will make him love me." At last she found a place safe enough from Nina, safe at least for the two days preceding the dance. On the day of the dance her employer plied her with extra work; a huge stack of circulars that had to be addressed, stamped and mailed before she left the office. She worked feverishly all day in the hope that the extra effort would enable her to leave as early as usual. The pile of letters, however, decreased slowly, and it was seven instead of the usual six o'clock when the last one was out. Home at last after a delay on the car she had barely an hour in which to dress. She bathed quickly, brushed her hair and was ready for fragile underthings and sheer chiffon stockings-She glanced at her watch: eight-thirty. On the top shelf of her closet was the dress. She reached for the box and laid it on her bed. Hope it won't need to be pressed." She pulled off the lid. For a moment she stared unbelievingly at the box. The dress was not there; there was nothing in the box-nothing, and though she searched madly, there was nothing in her closet, in Nina's, not even by mistake in her mother's. After a while she went to the telephone. She fumbled through the pages of the book. Hurry! He would be gone. She found his number, called it, and heard his voice. "Charles?" "Yes." "I'm ill-Can't go-No, can't possibly go -Explain later-Can hardy stand here!" She had fallen to the floor without re-placing the receiver. It was dawn before she heard Nina on the porch. She heard her plainly, although Nina was adept at coming in late unde-tected. She was inside the door now. "Open your coat! Open it! Well, like the dress, don't you? Pretty red color?" Nina wasn't looking. She had caught the glint of a revolver in her sister's hand. "What're you going to do?" she cried wildly. "Sally, put it away! Oh, don't do that to me! Sally! Sally! Sally!" She was on her knees, sobbing. The older girl wrenched her sister to her feet. "I hate-you-like-this!" Red is a pretty color in a dress; but not when it's blood, thick on a threadbare carpet. Aida By Grant Stratford THE Eureka Lunch Room was the only eating place in Black Hawk that was open after eight o'clock. The Eureka operated on no regular schedule. If the weather was blizzardy, it closed early; if it was Saturday night in spring, after the loggers were back and the roads were good enough for the farmers to come to town, it stayed open until ten o'clock. Gus Schwartz's wife did the cooking; Gus, toothpick in mouth, took in the money, and, during the busy times, assisted the waitresses, who were Annie Larson and Aida Sparks. Life in Black Hawk to Annie was no end entertaining. There was so much going on; there were so many folks on the street, so many lights from the store windows. It was fun, too, joshing the men who came to the lunch room, saying to them, "Go chase yourself," and "Put that in your pipe and smoke it." Annie Larson had been born and brought up in a mud-thatched cabin on the prairie where there had been no nearest neighbors. Small wonder that to Annie Larson, Black Hawk was New York and Paris. Aida Sparks was different. No one knew much about Aida. She was older than Annie and not so strong, and there were lines around her mouth and eyes one does not see in a country girl. At thirty she was facing nothing, with seven dollars in cash, with a gentleman's platinum watch hidden deep in her bureau drawer, and with a sense of the beauty and bitterness of all existence. Over the counter where Gus Schwartz made change, Aida had tacked a picture. It had been cut from a magazine, and it represented New York in the twilight of a soft winter evening. Like lavender castles of pasteboard the great buildings came out of the dusk. Blurred and yellow gleamed the thousand lights of the city. The pavements were lavender white from the snow fall, the tops of cabs were white, and thin lines of white outlined the buildings. It was a moment of unbelievable beauty and softness, a moment exquisite, mysterious, and yet New York. Though it was only a cheap and torn reproduction, it was enough to break the heart of a New Yorker nearly dead of loneliness already. It was the first thing Larry Mitchell raised his eyes to as he sat down at the counter of the Eureka Lunch Room. For a long time he sat with his eyes focused on the picture. He did not move; it seemed as though he hardly breathed; but he drank in every detail of that picture, as the eyes of a returning peasant soldier search down the road for the first sign of his village. His face was young, not very strong, but likeable and intelligent. Aida knew that, in spite of the weakness, there showed breeding. He was not a traveling salesman come up from the city with a line of goods he would display next day in the show-room of the Black Hawk Commercial House. There was something about his clothes that made Aida homesick. There was something, too, in the way his eyes had hung on the shabby picture that made something rise in her throat. He was like no one she had seen in Black Hawk. He was one of her own; neither very wise nor very strong, but with a capacity for joy that few can even dream of, and with an equal gift for suffering. After Larry Mitchell had finished his meal, he looked up at the woman before him. "Where shall I stay all night?" He pointed to his little pile of smart but shabby luggage, labeled with his name. 'You see, I just got in on the train from Huntley." Aida considered a moment. "Oh, the Commercial House, I guess. They're both bad enough." Then after a moment "You're not going to be here long ,are you?"