Every now and then it would take her by surprise. The woman lovely and open as a peony bloom amid bouquets of camelias and toy-colored rosebuds. Or setting regally on a burgundy leather sofa with House Beautiful magazines laying open on a coffee table of beveled glass and rosewood.

That's not how she saw herself except in the mirror of storefronts. There she could be someone who she thought she would have been. She'd smile and look deep into the dream--if no one would notice, though no one would be likely to do so at all.

Except you and I, who can listen and forgive her her seeming vanities. And try to understand.