noon
A sense of delicacy kept Lilly to her room that bright cold Sunday . She did her breathing exercises ; washed out some handkerchiefs and stockings ; tightened the buttons on a pretty new brown coat with a touch of modish stone-martin fur at the collar which she had purchased , not without qualms , for twenty-seven dollars and a half , at an advertised sale . Then for two long immobile hours she sat with her cheeks crumpled into her palms , staring out across the sun-washed roofs and roofs . At noon she took in a bottle of milk from the window sill , thawed it , slid a hatpin along the wrapping of a new tin of biscuit . She alternated between bites and sips , sitting on the bed edge , her gaze into the design of the wall paper . At home they must be sitting down to dinner , her father adjusting his napkin by the patent fasteners and tilting back his head for the invariable preamble of throwing the contents of his water tumbler down at a gulp . Her mother in the hebdomadal polka-dotted foulard , her bangs frizzed .