All day long Hattie picked skirt and suit models with unerring good
taste and business judgment. At night she was a creature transformed.
Every house of which Hattie bought did its duty like a soldier and a
gentleman. Nightly Hattie powdered her neck and arms, performed sacred
rites over her hair and nails, donned a gown so complicated that a
hotel maid had to hook her up the back, and was ready for her
evening's escort at eight. There wasn't a hat in a grill room from one
end of the Crooked Cow-path to the other that was more wildly barbaric
than Hattie's, even in these sane and simple days when the bird of
paradise has become the national bird. The buyer of suits for a
thriving department store in a hustling little Middle-Western town
isn't to be neglected. Whenever a show came to River Falls Hattie
would look bored, pass a weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say:
"Oh, yes. Clever little show. Saw it two winters ago in New York. This
won't be the original company, of course." The year that Hattie came
back wearing a set of skunk everyone thought it was lynx until Hattie
drew attention to what she called the "brown tone" in it.
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