were a man I'd be wild about you."

"A few of them are," returned Sally meekly, casting up her eyes, "but
I--"

"How about Gerald Smith?"

"He's too tall. I look like an aspiring grasshopper beside him."

"And Jack Wyth?"

"He's too short."

"And Sydney Kent?"

"He's too stupid."

"And Tom Bassett?"

Sally yawned.

"He's too--everything. There's cock crow, and I'm going to bed."

The next afternoon Eugenia drove Sally in to town, and stopped on her
outward trip to pay a visit to Mrs. Webb. She found that lady serenely
seated in her drawing-room, as unruffled as if she had not just
dismissed a cook and cooked a dinner.

"Oh, yes, thank you, dear, all is well," she replied in answer to the
girl's question; for she held it to be vulgarity to allude, in her
drawing-room, to the trials of housekeeping. She was not touched by such
questions because she ignored that she was in any way concerned in them.
She spent six hours a day with her servants, but had she spent
twenty-four she would have remained secure in her conviction that they
did not come within the sphere of her life.

"I have wanted to see you to ask you to join my society, the 'Daughters
of Duty,'" she went on, her eyes on a piece of fine white damask she was
hem-stitching. "Its object is to preserve our old landmarks, and when I
spoke to your father he told me he was quite sure you would care to
become an active member."

"I'm afraid I don't have much time," began Eugenia helplessly, when Mrs.
Webb interrupted her, though without haste or discourtesy.

"Not have time, my dear?" she repeated with her slow, fine smile. "If I
can find time, with all my other duties, don't you think that you might
be able to do so?"

Eugenia was baffled. "Of course I love Kingsborough," she said, "and I'd
preserve every inch of it with my own hands if I could--but I can't bear
meetings--and--and things."

Mrs. Webb took a careful stitch in the damask. "I thought you might care
enough to assist us," she remarked tentatively; and Eugenia succumbed.

"I'll do anything I can," she declared. "I will, indeed--only you
mustn't expect much."

In a few moments she rose to go, lingering with a courteous appearance
of being unwilling to depart, which belonged to her social training. As
she stood in the doorway, her hand in Mrs. Webb's, the older woman
looked at her almost affectionately.

"I had a letter from Dudley this morning," she said. "He is coming down
next w