Harriet Sets the Rules
The snow was coming down hard on a darkened Monday morning in December as Harriet Smyth picked her way through the snowy lot to her workplace, the venerable St. Charles Hotel in downtown Madisonia. Even with the storm, she arrived as she always did at 6:45 AM.
She had on her warmest woolen coat, black beret, and mittens. Beneath her coat, she wore a crisply pressed striped blouse, a snug fitting vest her daughter Bonnie had sewn and quilted, and a heavy denim skirt that nearly reached her ankles. Her flannel-lined boots had stout two-inch heels that added to her height. Even in the near zero temperature, she knew the hotel would be over heated so she left the top few buttons of her blouse undone.
Harriet was forty four years old, and possessed of a caring matern
