tell me you were not watching Mr. Dwight?"

"Well, if I say yes, it is not because I care a hang about living up to my
reputation, but because I don't care whether you know it or not."

"That is very naughty--"

"Stop talking to me as if I were a child."

"You are excited, darling, and no wonder."

Maria Abbott was in the process of raising a family and she did it with
tact and firmness. Nature had done much to assist her in her several
difficult roles. She was very tall straight and slender, with a haughty
little head, as perfect in shape as Alexina's, set well back on her
shoulders, and what had been known in her Grandmother Ballinger's day as a
cameo-profile. Her abundant fair hair added to the high calm of her mien
and it was always arranged in the prevailing fashion. On the street she
invariably wore the tailored suit, and her tailor was the best in New York.
She thought blouses in public indecent, and wore shirtwaists of linen or
silk with high collars, made by the same master-hand. There was nothing
masculine in her appearance, but she prided herself upon being the best
groomed woman even in that small circle of her city that dressed as well as
the fashionable women of New York. At balls and receptions she wore gowns
of an austere but expensive simplicity, and as the simple jewels of her
inheritance looked pathetic beside the blazing necklaces and sunbursts
(there were only two or three tiaras in San Francisco) of those new people
whom she both deplored and envied, she wore none; and she was assured that
the lack added to the distinction of her appearance.