Vicky Van

Victoria Van Allen was the name she signed to her letters and to her cheques but Vicky Van as her friends called her was signed all over her captivating personality from the top of her dainty tossing head to the tips of her dainty dancing feet. I liked her from the first and if her small and earlies were said to be so called because they were timed by the small and early numerals on the clock dial and if her little bridge games kept in active circulation a goodly share of our country's legal tender those things are not crimes. I lived in one of the polite sections of New York City up among the East Sixties and at the insistence of my sister and aunt who lived with me our home was near enough the great boulevard to be designated by that enviable phrase Just off Fifth Avenue. We were on the north side of the street and nearer to the Avenue on the south side was the home of Vicky Van. Before I knew the girl I saw her a few times at long intervals on the steps of her house or entering her little car and half-consciously I noted her charm and her evident zest of life.