irement from scientific appointments,
or the fact that their most recent work of fiction had
reached its fourth edition. Lady Halifax always read the
_Athenian_, even the publishers' announcements; she liked
to keep "in touch," she said, with the literary activities
of the day, and it gave her a special gratification to
notice the prosperity of her writing friends indicated
in tall figures. Miss Halifax read it too, but she liked
the "Art Notes" best; it was a matter of complaint with
her that the house was not more open to artists--new,
original artists like John Kendal. In answer to this
Lady Halifax had a habit of stating that she did not see
what more they could possibly want than the president of
the Royal Academy and the one or two others that came
already. As for John Kendal, he was certainly new and
original, but he was respectable notwithstanding; they
could be certain that he was not putting his originality
on--with a hearth-brush, for the sake of advertisement.
Lady Halifax was not so sure of Elfrida's originality,
of which she had been given a glimpse or two at first,
and which the girl's intimacy with the Cardiffs would
have presupposed in any case. But presently, and somewhat
to Lady Halifax's perplexity, Miss Bell's originality
disappeared. It seemed to melt into the azure of perfect
good-breeding, flecked by little clouds of gay sayings
and politenesses, whenever chance brought her under Lady
Halifax's observation. A not unreasonable solution of
the problem might have been found in Elfrida's instinctive
objection to casting her pearls where they are proverbially
unappreciated, and the necessity in her nature of pleasing
herself by one form of agreeable behavior if not by
another. Lady Halifax, however, ascribed it to the
improving influence of insular institutions, and finally
concluded that it ought to be followed up.

Elfrida wore amber and white the evening on which Lady
Halifax followed it up--a Parisian modification of a
design carried, out originally by the Sparta dressmaker,
with a degree of hysteria, under Miss Bell's direction.
She wore it with a touch of unusual color in her cheeks
and, an added light in her dark eyes that gave a winsomeness
to her beauty which it had not always. A cunningly bound
spray of yellow-stamened lilies followed the curving line
of her low-necked dress, ending in a cluster in her bosom;
the glossy little leaves of the smilax the florist had
wreathed in with the