great deal of her thin, yet pretty girlish neck, and it had a very
long train. She had a gold fillet studded with diamonds for her
hair--that hair which was now dressed according to the very latest
mode--a mode which was startling, yet becoming, and she clasped
around her throat the Tiffany necklace, and as a crowning touch, put
on long white gloves. When she appeared upon the verandah where
Margaret sat dressed in a pretty lingerie gown with Wilbur in a light
grey business suit, the silence could be heard. Then there was one
double gasp of admiration from Maida and Adelaide in their white
frocks and blue ribbons. They looked at the visitor with positive
adoration, but she flushed hotly. She was a very quick-witted girl.
Margaret recovered herself, presented Wilbur, and shortly, they went
in to dinner, but it was a ghastly meal. Martha Wallingford in her
unsuitable splendour was frankly, as she put it afterward, "hopping
mad," and Wilbur was unhappy and Margaret aghast, although apparently
quite cool. There was not a guest besides Martha. The dinner was
simple. Afterward it seemed too farcical to ask a guest attired like
a young princess to go out on the verandah and lounge in a wicker
chair, while Wilbur smoked. Then Annie Eustace appeared and Margaret
was grateful. "Dear Annie," she said, after she had introduced the
two girls, "I am so glad you came over. Come in."

"It is pleasanter on the verandah, isn't it?" began Annie, then she
caught Margaret's expressive glance at the magnificent white silk.
They all sat stiffly in Margaret's pretty drawing-room. Martha said
she didn't play bridge and upon Annie's timid suggestion of pinocle,
said she had never heard of it. Wilbur dared not smoke. All that
wretched evening they sat there. The situation was too much for
Margaret, that past mistress of situations, and her husband was
conscious of a sensation approaching terror and also wrath whenever