er."

"A _river?_"

"Yes: in Brazil. Isn't that where she's been living?"

"Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You've been reading the
wrong thing," Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the
volume.

"It's the only Xingu in the Encyclopaedia; and she _has_ been living in
Brazil," Miss Van Vluyck persisted.

"Yes: her brother has a consulship there," Mrs. Leveret interposed.

"But it's too ridiculous! I--we--why we _all_ remember studying Xingu
last year--or the year before last," Mrs. Ballinger stammered.

"I thought I did when _you_ said so," Laura Glyde avowed.

"I said so?" cried Mrs. Ballinger.

"Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind."

"Well _you_ said it had changed your whole life!"

"For that matter. Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time
she'd given it."

Mrs. Plinth interposed: "I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of
the original."

Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. "Oh, what does it
all matter if she's been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck's
right--she was talking of the river all the while!"

"How could she? It's too preposterous," Miss Glyde exclaimed.

"Listen." Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia,
and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. "'The
Xingu, one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of
Mato Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less
than one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon
near the mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is
auriferous and fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered
in 1884 by the German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and
dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the
Stone Age of culture.'"

The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence
from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. "She certainly _did_
speak of its having branches."

The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. "And of
its great length," gasped Mrs. Ballinger.

"She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn't skip--you just had to
wade through," Miss Glyde added.

The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth's compact
resistances. "How could there be anything improper about a river?" she
enquired.

"Improper?"

"Why, what she said about the source--th