Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/239



NE warm early-September Saturday morning Reba made a trip to her dressmaker's to insure the safe delivery of a costume, consisting of a dress and hat (the dressmaker carried millinery, and other bits of finery, too) and a long canary-colored motor-coat, ordered especially for Chadwick Booth, whom, as usual on Saturdays now, she was to meet in his automobile on a side street three or four blocks away from the hospital where he was detained until four or five o'clock in the afternoon.

If Chadwick Booth liked pleasing Becky with menu-surprises, and pretty places of entertainment, Becky liked pleasing Chadwick Booth with pretty clothes. It might be only a word or two that he would let drop about a new gown, or hat, that she had put on with such care for his delectation, but if it was only an approving nod that he gave her when she appeared before him in some triumph from the seldom-erring dressmaker, it was sufficient to make her glow with happiness.

Last Saturday he had said to her, as she had sat against the yellowish background of a tiny tea-room, "I'd like to see you in corn-color sometime, Becky." And to-day Becky had gone to bring back to her room the embroidered corn-colored linen dress, which she had promptly ordered the preceding Monday; and broad-brimmed, corn-colored hat and motor-coat to match.