“Both you girls come down town Monday, and I’ll show you a rug worth fifty thousand dollars,” suggested John.

“Oh, thank you, dear!” Adele said in bright protest.  “But if you knew what I’ve got to do Monday!  I’m going to have my linen fitted, and I’m going in to see the doctor about that funny, giddy feeling I’ve had twice.  And Miriam wants me to look at hats with her.  I’ll be simply dead.  Miriam and I will get a bite somewhere; we’re dying to try the fifty-cent lunch at Shaftner’s; they say it isn’t so bad.  It’ll be an awful day, to say nothing of being all tired out from Coney.  But I suppose I’ll have to get through it.”

She smiled resignedly at Martie.  But Martie had fallen suddenly into absent thought.  She was thinking of the odd look on John’s face as he came forward in the pleasant dimness and coolness of the big store.

The next day they went duly to Coney Island; their last trip together, as it chanced, and one of the most successful of their many days in the parks or on the beaches.  John, Martie, and Teddy were equally filled with childish enthusiasm for the prospect, and perhaps Adele liked as well her role of amused elder.

It was part of the pleasure for Martie to get up early, to slip off to church in the soft, cool morning.  The dreaming city, awaiting the heat of the day, was already astir, churchgoers and holiday-makers were at every crossing.  Freshly washed sidewalks were drying, enormous Sunday newspapers and bottles of cream waited in the doorways.  Fasting women, with contented faces, chatted in the bakery and the dairy, and in the push-cart at the curb ice melted under a carpet cover.  It was going to be a scorcher—­said the eager boys and girls, starting off in holiday wear, coatless, gloveless, frantic to be away.  Little families were engineered to the surface cars, clean small boys in scalloped blue wash suits, mother straining with the lunch-basket, father carrying the white-coated baby and the newspaper and the children’s cheap coats.

Martie, kissing Teddy as a preliminary to her delayed breakfast, came home to discuss the order of events.  The route and the time were primarily important:  Teddy’s bucket, John’s camera, her own watch, must not be forgotten.  There were last words for Henny and Aurora, good-byes for Grandma; then they were out in the Sunday streets, and the day was before them!

John took charge of the child; Adele and Martie talked and laughed together all the long trip.  The extraordinary costumes of the boys and girls about them, the sights that filled the streets, these and a thousand other things were of fresh interest.  Adele’s costume was discussed.

“My gloves washed so beautifully; he said they would, but I didn’t believe him!  My skirt doesn’t look a bit too short, does it, Martie?  I put this old veil on, and then if we have dinner any place decent, I’ll change to the other.  I wore these shoes, because I’ll tell you why:  they only last one summer, anyway, and you might as well get your wear out of them.  Listen, does any powder show?  I simply put it on thick, because it does save you so.  It’s that dead white.  I told her I didn’t have colour enough for it; she said I had a beautiful colour—­absurd, but I suppose they have to say those things!”