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...