Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/25

Rh 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 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 the memories of her own mother.

She could recall that twenty years ago her mother had been gray and shapeless, her face covered with light brown moth-spots, wrinkles, and long hairs here and there—a spiritless creature, who wore loose, mouse-colored wrappers and flat men's shoes. Stella Dallas (Stella Martin she was then) was ashamed to have her young men friends catch a glimpse of her mother when they came to call in the red cottage house in Cataract Village outside the city of Milhampton. Laurel should never be ashamed of her mother like that, before her