She had been putting the finishing touches to the bathroom, the best towels embroidered with fat K. S. G.'s and the Christmas-present soap still in its violet wrapper, when they got out of the taxi. She would have done it sooner, but Aunt Sarah had locked herself in for nearly an hour. Kate stood there pressing savon de violette against her heart, looking down at Evelyn waiting for Joe to pay O'Leary's man, their bags, bright with foreign labels, piled beside her. Exquisite, poised, in a dark-purple hat like a petunia, and a close dark-purple coat, her face framed in a soft fluff of fur, slender wrists in softly wrinkled creamy suède, slender ankles in flesh-colored silk, she made Kate's knees tremble so that she could hardly get downstairs to let them in.
And now they were sitting around the table, eating the kaleidoscope patterns of green pepper and pimento and hard-boiled egg on anchovy canapés. Effa came in, wearing her nice black dress and white apron, and those awful pearl beads; too late for Kate to speak to her about them. And it was just like Joe to say: "Hello, Effa! How are you?" and of course she had to answer: "Hello, Joe! Just fine and dandy, thank you. How's yourself?" right in front of that girl!
Small painted flowers bloomed through the soup, and the plates were taken away.
"What's your little girl's name?"
"Why, Je! Haven't you told Evelyn that? Well, you're a nice one! It's really Anna Louise, for the two
