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 Julie, plump, blonde, placid, forsook her soft white blandishments and tried steel against the steel of Selina's decision.

“He leaves you right after supper. And you're alone every night until twelve and after.”

“I don't see what that has to do with it,” Selina said, stiffly.

Julie's steel, being low-grade, melted at once and ran off her in rivulets. “Of course it hasn't, Selie dear. Only I thought you might leave him just this once.”

“If I'm not there he's disappointed. And that terrible Mrs. Tebbitt makes eyes at him. He hates it there.”

“Then I don't see why you stay. I never could see. You've been there four months now, and I think it's horrid and stuffy; and oilcloth on the stairs.”

“Father has had some temporary business setbacks.”

Selina's costume testified to that. True, it was modish, and bustled, and bastled, and flounced; and her high-crowned, short-rimmed hat, with its trimming of feathers and flowers and ribbons had come from New York. But both were of last spring's purchasing, and this was September.

In the course of the afternoon they had been looking over the pages of Godey's Ladies Book for that month. The disparity between Selina's costume and the creations pictured there was much as the difference