usband for luncheon at Sherry's
or the Plaza."

"Of course you'll have a country-place on Long Island," suggested
Nancy, with good-natured irony, which Alma took quite seriously.

"Oh, yes. With terraces and Italian gardens. I _would_ love to be
seen standing in a beautiful garden, with broad marble steps, and rows
of poplar trees, and a sun-dial----"

"For whose benefit?"

"Oh, my own."

"We're feeling rich to-day, aren't we?"

"Well, I don't know anything that feels better than to be going to buy
a new dress. Shall we get the hat too, Nancy?"

"What do you think?"

Alma hesitated.

"Well, I suppose we'd better wait. It's funny how when you start
spending money at all you want to get everything under the sun. Of
course, girls like Elise or Jane _do_ get everything they want----"

"Exactly. And when you're with them you feel that you must let go,
too. And if you can't afford it----" Nancy shrugged her shoulders,
and Alma finished for her:

"It makes you miserable."

"Or else," said Nancy, with a curl of the lip, "or else, if you aren't
bothered with any too much pride, you'll do what that Margot Cunningham
does. She simply camps on the Porterbridges. Elise is so good-natured
that she lets Margot buy everything she likes and charge it to her, and
Margot finds life so comfy there that she can't tear herself away. I'd
rather work my fingers to the bone than take so much as a pair of
gloves given to me out of good-natured charity!" Nancy's eyes
sparkled. Alma was silent. There were times when Nancy's fierce,
stubborn pride frightened her--sometimes the way her sister's lips
folded together, and her small, cleft chin was lifted, made her fancy
that there might be a resemblance between Nancy and old Mr. Prescott.
Alma was the butterfly, and Nancy the bee; the butterfly no doubt
wonders why the bee so busily stores away the honey won by thrift and
industry, and, in all probability, the bee reads many a lesson to the
gay-winged idler who clings to the sunny flower. But to-day the bee
relented.

"Now, ma'am, consider yourself the owner of unlimited wealth," said
Nancy, as they swung briskly into the concourse of the Grand Central
Station. "You're a regular Cinderella, and _I'm_ your godmother, who
is going to perform the stupendously brilliant, mystifying act of
turning twenty rolls of sitting-room wall-paper, and three coats of
brown paint into--five yards of superb silk, two silver slippers, t