"I guess there is wind in town, too, and tides, aren't there, Moth-er?"
"Wind, all right!" The gust at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue caught their umbrellas like chips. They ducked into the wet wind, rounded the corner, and bent against it down the avenue.
"Isn't there any tide?" insisted Spencer.
"Yes, of course," Catherine answered, absently. Too far such a day, she supposed, to go down to her old market. That restaurant had changed hands again; a man behind the large window was even then drawing outlines for new gilt letters. The same hairdresser, the same idle manicure girl, intent on her own fingers, the drug store. They crossed the street, their feet wobbling over the cobblestones, slipping through the guttered water. There they were, at the market.
"Where's the kitty?" demanded Marian, her eyes bright in her rose-tanned face.
"Kitty?" Catherine weighed the oranges in her fingers, and looked about for a clerk.
"Why, yes, Muvver. That little gray kitty——"
"He'd probably be grown into an old gray alley cat by this time."
Catherine frowned a little over her list. She should have come out earlier; everything looked wilted, picked over. Vitamins, calories, and the budget. The old dreary business of managing decently, reasonably. The country and a garden of your own did spoil you for these dejected pyramids.