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 Armando and said to Olga, "I wish I knew you well enough to ask where you got that pretty hat."

To which Olga, with a laugh and a gesture of placing herself at Floss's entire disposition, a gesture Mamie would have given an eye tooth to have been born with,—had replied, "It's I who made it, Madame, and if you would really like to know me better, let me come and make you one . . . only ever so slightly different!" she candidly supplemented, with a wry smile, and both Floss and Olga looked out upon acres of common ground.

And when Grover, delighted with this give and take, his eyes fixed on the silhouette of Olga's smart black hat against the greenish sky that showed through the high window behind her, had rapidly cut in, "One would say, Mademoiselle, that you even made the holly tree out there as well, for when you hold your head like that it makes a perfect pom-pom on the brim," she had looked at him coolly, and retorted, "I suppose you think, because you once bought me a pair of stockings, that you know me well enough to say any foolishness?"

"I wish I did," said Grover. "There are so many millions of nice foolishnesses to say."

"What's this about stockings?" inquired Floss, her blue eyes as big as saucers, and a half eaten caviare tartine poised in the air.

Grover was obliged, to his embarrassment, to tell the story, which seemed to give them all an immoderate amount of amusement, especially when Olga capped it