Mother and daughter can then go to school together."

"It is very fortunate," Mrs. Levice observed pensively, sipping her
necessary glass of port, "that C_ sent your hat this morning to wear with
your new gown. Isn't it?"

"Fortunate!" Ruth exclaimed, laughing banteringly; "it is destiny."

So Mrs. Levice slipped easily into Ruth's plan from a social standpoint,
and Ruth slipped out, trim and graceful, from her mother's artistic
manipulations.

Meanwhile Mrs. Levice intended writing some delayed letters till her
husband's return, which promised to be early in the afternoon.

She had just about settled herself at her desk when Jennie Lewis came
bustling in. Mrs. Lewis always brought in a sense of importance; one
looked upon her presence with that exhilarating feeling with which one
anticipates the latest number of a society journal.

"Go right on with your writing, Aunt Esther," she said after they had
exchanged greetings. "I have brought my work, so I shall not mind the
quiet in the least."

"As if I would bore you in that way!" returned Mrs. Levice, with a laughing
glance at her, as she closed her desk. "Lay off your things, and let us
have a downright comfortable afternoon. Don't forget a single sensation; I
am actually starving for one."

Mrs. Lewis smiled grimly as she fluffed up her bang with her hat-pin. She