it--for whom, if reports were true, many ladies fair had sighed,
sickened, and died. And she, alone in her maidenly coterie, had already
met the too exclusive metropolitan--four days ago, by the lucky fluke of
turning in at the Country Club at an out-of-the-way morning moment, when
she might have motored straight on home, and had been within an ace of
doing so. An omen, wasn't it? Five minutes she and Mr. Canning had
talked, over so-called horses' necks provided by his sedate host, and
before the end of that time she had perceived an interest dawning in the
young man's somewhat ironic eyes. With the usual of his sex one could
have counted pretty definitely on the thing's being followed up.
However, Mr. Canning, the difficult, had merely saluted her
fascinatingly, and retired to re-maroon himself in the rural villa of
his kinsmen, the Allison Paynes, where he halted for a week or two on
his health-seeking progress southward.

It looked like a parting forever, but wasn't, owing to that help which
comes ever to those who help themselves....

To the sensible query, Mrs. Heth, lightening, replied: "Of course, the
gray crêpe-de-chine."

"I think so, too. Only there's a rip at the bottom. I'm sure Flora
hasn't touched it since Mr. Avery put his large foot straight
through it."

Having turned from the window, Carlisle yawned and glanced at the clock.
The two ladies conversed desultorily of draped effects, charmeuse, and
why Mattie Allen imagined that she could wear pink. Mrs. Heth ran on
through the "Post." Carlisle put up "Pickwick," by Dickens, sticking in
a box of safety matches to keep the place. Then she examined herself in