Cleo had a mystery. She was like the valleys under mist and sometimes used it as they did for allure. But more, I think, for presence.
        She had valleys in her past. In fact, they seemed to demark it.
        She spoke of them.

1st seeing her 1 might think Rose the fragile member. But in reality it was Carrie,
she who looked so full and fresh, she was indeed ample in her essence and as open, wholesome as her father's dairy house which frequently seemed to exist in order that her thick blond hair might fall within a worthy setting and her rosy arms with sleeves rolled up
and her boots which stirred the straw in sketched dances.

Elaine, they said, was a rich man's daughter.
        But they said far more about her mother.

said Elaine's mother knew John Singer Sargent but how could that be? And how could it not? Whatever needs to be will. I learned that near the meadow, or possibly before.
        But they said that, and swore it was true, and moved their lips and squinted an eye
as though that told me more.
        It did, but not what they had intended.
        Their windows were small and always dusty.
        Elaine's mother might have known Sargent. Why not? He knew a great many people, especially those not limited by time or space. Or, it might have been like a Van Gogh
where 1 cannot tell the potatoes from the shoes.