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136 dislike vanity in our girl, but I sometimes feel that I should like to make her know that she was worth considering.”

“Oh, dear Mrs. Moulton!” Mary protested, rosy red from her throat to her soft brown hair. “No fear of my forgetting Mary Garden.”

“I see her alluded to in the papers rather often,” said Mr. Moulton. “I saw to-day that she was singing in London.”

“Poor real Mary Garden!” sighed Mary, pityingly, as she arose to go. “She has to be used so much to tease me!”

“The party’s all arranged, is it?” asked Win, also rising.

“No, indeed; it’s only arranged to be arranged!” cried Mary, looking around the grave room with the affection she always gave it.

It was a high-ceiled room, with arched door-ways, white wainscoting, an ample unadorned fireplace; soft green, patternless paper on the walls making an effective background for excellent pictures, and its furniture was plain and solid, square in outlines, upholstered in dark brocade.

“This room always looks to me as if it had never let anything that was not good come into it, at least not to stay in it,” she said.