It all began with the rustle of silk. When Helmi's Aunt Lili came back to Finland for a visit, after six years of the crowded ways of life in America, the older women-folk of her family regarded her with mingled feelings of awe, envy and reproach. Her elder sister, Helmi's mother, said it was foolishness for a girl who had to earn her money hard, carrying trays, to put it all on her back and wear clothes that only queens should be wearing. At which Aunt Lili had laughed, showing her gold teeth, and said it was a matter of principle with her to spend her money so fast that no one could steal it from her Helmi was the one member of the family who gave the visitor full hearted and unmixed devotion. She loved the rich sound of her silken skirts, it was so luxuriant, so hieno, it seemed to raise the whole family to a higher social level, and she marveled how any one, even her mother, would dare to find fault with this wonderful person who wore silk stockings, had fur on the inside of her coat, and pink ribbons in garments that did not show at all