"We bought all our things in two days at one fell swoop," said Flossy
with a gay laugh. "Gregory gave the dealers carte blanche. That's his
way," she added with a touch of pride. "I dare say the house would have
been prettier if we could have taken more time. However, it is all paid
for now. Some of it was bought on the instalment plan, but Gregory
bought or sold something in stocks the next week which covered the
furniture and paid for a present for me of this besides," she said,
indicating her seal-skin cape. "Wasn't he a dear?"

Selma did not know precisely what the instalment plan was, but she
understood that Mr. Williams had been distinctly clever in his wife's
estimation. She perceived that Mrs. Williams had the same light, half
jocular manner displayed by Wilbur's friends, and that she spoke with
bubbling, jaunty assurance, which was suggestive of frivolity. Still
Wilbur had intimated that this might be the New York manner, and clearly
her neighbor had come in a friendly spirit and was duly appreciative of
the distinction of being literary. Besides, her ready disposition to
talk about herself and her affairs seemed to Selma the sign of a
willingness to be truly friendly. The seal-skin cape she wore was very
handsome, and she was more conspicuously attired from head to foot than
any woman with whom Selma had ever conversed. She was pretty, too--a
type of beauty less spiritual than her own--with piquant, eager
features, laughing, restless gray eyes, and light hair which escaped
from her coquettish bonnet in airy ringlets. If they had met three years
earlier Selma would certainly have regarded her as an incarnation of
volatility and servility to foreign fashions. Now, though she classed
her promptly as a frivolous person, she regarded her with a keen
curiosity not unmixed with self-distress, and the reflection came to her
that a little of the New York manner might perhaps be desirable when in