LADIES MUST LIVE

by

ALICE DUER MILLER

Author of "Come Out of the Kitchen," etc.

1917







CHAPTER I


Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year's
Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable
people in New York were out of town.

Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in
such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same
instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in people were
concerned. She turned toward hidden social availability very much as the
douser's hazel wand turns toward the hidden spring. When she crossed the
room to speak to some woman after dinner, whatever that woman's social
position might formerly have been, you could be sure that at present she