Their many layers of clothing were close-fitting and designed for New Zealand, where inside the house it was almost always cool. Mary Carson, exercising gently by walking down to see her sister-in-law, looked at Fee's high-necked, floor-length calico gown superciliously. She herself was clad in the new fashion, a cream silk dress coming only halfway down her calves, with loose elbow sleeves, no waist and a low décolletage. "Really, Fiona, you're hopelessly old-fashioned," she said, glancing round the parlor with its fresh coat of cream paint, the Persian carpets and the spindly priceless furniture.

  "I have no time to be anything else," Fee said, curtly for her when acting as hostess.

  "You'll have more time now, with the men away so much and fewer meals to get. Raise your hems and stop wearing petticoats and stays, or you'll die when summer comes. It can get fifteen to twenty degrees hotter than this, you know." Her eyes dwelled on the portrait of the beautiful blond woman in her Empress Eugenie crinoline. "Who's that?" she asked, pointing. "My grandmother."

  "Oh, really? And the furniture, the carpets?" "Mine, from my grandmother."

  "Oh, really? My dear Fiona, you've come down in the world, haven't you?" Fee never lost her temper, so she didn't now, but her thin lips got thinner. "I don't think so, Mary. I have a good man; you ought to know that." "But penniless. What was your maiden name?" 

  "Armstrong."

  "Oh, really? Not the Roderick Armstrong Armstrongs?" "He's my oldest brother. His namesake was my great-grandfather." Mary Carson rose, flapping her picture hat at the flies, which were not respecters of person. "Well, you're better born than the Clearys are, even if I do say so myself. Did you love Paddy enough to give all that up?" "My reasons for what I do," said Fee levelly, "are my business, Mary, not yours. I do not discuss my husband, even with his sister."

  The lines on either side of Mary Carson's nose got deeper, her eyes bulged slightly. "Hoity-toity!"

  She did not come again, but Mrs. Smith, her housekeeper, came often, and repeated Mary Carson's advice about their clothes.