Lucy’s smile vanished suddenly.  “Well, what if it is plump?” said she.  “What is the use of it?  A girl living here in East Westland can never wear a dress to show her neck.  People would think she had gone out of her mind.”

Rose laughed.  “I have some low-neck gowns,” said she, “but I can’t wear them, either.  Maybe that is fortunate for me, my neck is so thin.”

“You will wear them in other places,” said Lucy.  “You won’t stay here all your days.  You will have plenty of chances to wear your low-neck gowns.”  She spoke again in her unnaturally high voice.  She turned towards her closet to get her dress.

“Lucy!” said Mrs. Ayres.

“Well, it is the truth,” said Lucy.  “Don’t preach, mother.  If you were a girl, and somebody told you your neck was pretty, and you knew other girls had chances to wear low-neck dresses, you wouldn’t be above feeling it a little.”

“My neck was as pretty as yours when I was a girl, and I never wore a low-neck dress in my life,” said Mrs. Ayres.

“Oh, well, you got married when you were eighteen,” said Lucy.  There was something almost coarse in her remark.  Rose felt herself flush.  She was sophisticated, and had seen the world, although she had been closely if not lovingly guarded; but she shrank from some things as though she had never come from under a country mother’s wing in her life.

Lucy got a pale-blue muslin gown from the closet and slipped it over her shoulders.  Then she stood for her mother to fasten it in the back.  Lucy was lovely in this cloud of blue, with edgings of lace on the ruffles and knots of black velvet.  She fastened her black velvet girdle, and turned herself sidewise with a charming feminine motion, to get the effect of her slender waist between the curves of her small hips and bust.  Again she looked pleased.

“You are dear in that blue gown,” said Rose.

Lucy smiled.  Then she scowled as suddenly.  She could see Rose over her shoulder in the glass.  “It is awful countrified,” said she.  “Look at the sleeves and look at yours.  Where was yours made?”

“My dressmaker in New York made it,” faltered Rose.  She felt guilty because her gown was undeniably in better style.

“There’s no use trying to have anything in East Westland,” said Lucy.

While she was fastening a little gold brooch at her throat, Rose again tried to change the subject.  “That candy of yours looked perfectly delicious,” said she.  “You must teach me how you make it.”

Mrs. Ayres went dead white in a moment.  She looked at Lucy with a look of horror which the girl did not meet.  She went on fastening her brooch.  “Did you like it?” she asked, carelessly.

“An accident happened to it, I am sorry to say,” explained Rose.  “Mr. Allen and I were out in the grove, and somehow he jostled me, and the candy got scattered on the ground, and he stepped on it.”

“Were you and he alone out there?” asked Lucy, in a very quiet voice.