garden. That's where I'll stay when I live there. It's

really a charming room, Connie. Not as large as my apartment here, naturally, but cozy."

Connie rose sighing and started toward the door.

"Yeah,

I hope you'll

well, I d better get up to my own place. I promised Elaine I'd help clean dish closets this evening. say goodbye' before you leave."

"Of course, my dear," Marion agreed. "I

won't be leaving

for another day or two. I want to get there in time for the holidays."

At the door Connio turned, smiling. "About that oozy little room," she said, "does it have an old rocking chair in one corner?"

Marion sat for many moments staring at the closed door through which Connie had disappeared.

The holiday music, the carols, and the lively little jingles had started early this year, Marion thought. The radio was on, and she was listening while she packed. She had spread her three suitcases out on the floor and beside them she had placed a large cardboard carton. And she was busy sorting out her clothes, arranging them into two categories: Futuro things, which went into the suitcases, and Past things, which went into the cardboard carton. Future things included such articles as comfortable shoes, slippers, sweaters, and house dressos; Past things were fewer, a pair of red, high-heeled pumps, a low-out gown, some black lace underwear, a pale blue diaphanous nightgown, and a sophisticated hostess outfit, silver and black, that she never had the nerve to wear. When she had finished, she closed the suitcases and stood them by the door. The cardboard carton she placed back in the closet. Sho would give that to someone, she thought. Someone like Elaine, someone who could use such finery. Someone young, like Elaine.

Marion walked to the spacious window, raised the blind, and looked out. A wet snow had begun to fall over Manhattan, shellacking the streets, and making black mirrors

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