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132 critical of the peculiarities of your party. I think you may safely count upon a pleasant afternoon, my dear,” Mrs. Moulton reassured her.

“Mother has a beautiful gown for a garden party, which she wants to wear. She has worn it but once, to Lord Balindale’s coming-of-age celebration, in England. He’s an earl, Mrs. Moulton! And for the second time she is to wear it here. Doesn’t it sound rather awful?” Mary asked.

“I haven’t heard a description of it, Mary,” said Mrs. Moulton dryly. “I doubt that your mother would have an awful gown. Of course you can’t mean that you are overpowered by its having been worn on a superior occasion? No good American admits superior occasions—at least not titled superiors. And, if it came to that, my child, the original Garden bore a title and renounced it, when he came here, for conscientious reasons. Doesn’t that offset the incense of past glories which that gown may waft?”

“Yes, it does. I knew that about the first Garden, but I haven’t thought of it for a long time,” laughed Mary. “To tell the truth, it isn’t the earl’s party in itself that worries me: it’s