Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/73

 Miss Jelliffe, the society reporter for the Star, was the next guest to be presented. She wore a freshly laundered skirt of stiff, starched duck, a pink shirt-waist with a high collar, and a broad linen Ascot tie, pinned with a gold horseshoe. On her yellow hair, streaked with white, was balanced a wide straw sailor. Miss Jelliffe was fading, but it was always said of her that once she had been a beauty. Her first symptoms of decay had unfortunately synchronized with her father's financial failure. He had been a wholesale grain merchant, but a year or two of bad crops had ruined him. Nevertheless, the family still held a high social position in the community.

Did you see the little write-up I gave you in the Star? was Miss Jelliffe's initial question.

It was the first item I saw in the paper, the Countess truthfully replied.

Removing a small pad of paper and a pencil from her bag, Miss Jelliffe demanded, How do you like Maple Valley?

I love it, the Countess responded.

Scribbling away, Miss Jelliffe continued, Don't you find many improvements? 'The water-works, the projected depot, the High School. . . . There is to be brick paving, at least on Main Street and Oakdale Avenue. The reporter ruefully recollected the cedar-block roads in great need of repair.

I wouldn't have known the place, was the Countess's tactful answer.