of thanksgiving ceremony. It seems very irrational."

But when I ask him if it would be more rational to be sorry to come home,
he does not answer,--at least not in words.

"Where do we dine to-night?" I asked Evan, as he was giving unmistakable
signs of "meditation," and I heard by the footsteps overhead that Miss
Lavinia was stirring.

"At the Art and Nature Club. You can dress as much or as little as you
please, and we can get a table in a cosey corner, and afterward sit about
upstairs for an hour, for there will be music to-night. I have asked
Martin Cortright to join us. It has its interesting side, this--a
transplanted Englishman married to a country girl introducing old
bred-in-the-bone New Yorkers to New Manhattan."

When I go to town my costuming consists merely in change of waists, as
street and public conveyances alike are a perpetual menace to one's best
petticoats, so in a few moments we were on our way uptown.

We did not tell Miss Lavinia where we were going until we were almost
there, and she was quite upset, as dining at the two or three hotels and
other places affected by the Whirlpoolers implies a careful and special
toilet to run the gantlet of society reporters, for every one is somebody
in one sense, though in another "nobody is really any one."

She was reassured, however, the moment that she drew her high-backed oak
chair up to the table that Evan had reserved in a little alcove near the
fireplace. Before the oysters arrived, and Martin Cortright appeared to
fill the fourth seat, she had completely relaxed, and was beaming at the