started. On the way she went in and bought chocolates; not that she
wanted them either--it was too hot for candy, she said--but one must
be doing something.

Coming out the door they met Georgy, who promptly stopped. He was a
beautiful youngster, with a buoyant and splendid heartiness, and now
he was flushing ruddily with pleasure up to his yellow hair.

Alexina blushed, too; she hardly knew why, except that he did, and
told his name to Molly, who regarded him with smiling eyes and gave
him her hand, whereupon he blushed still more and then suggested that
he go along with them.

A group of young matrons and their daughters stood at the door of the
shop to which they were bound, chatting in easy, warm weather fashion.
Alexina knew them slightly but Georgy knew them well, and they were
greeted with salutations and laughter.

Molly smiled, too, an interested smile that brightened as she was
introduced, and she remembered having known the mother of this one
when she, Molly, had lived in Louisville before, and the husband of
another one, and all the while she was letting her eyes smile from one
to the other of the group, who meanwhile were telling Georgy that they
were planning a dance.

Dance? Molly's eyes grew inquiringly eager. Favors were they speaking
of? She had a trunk full of Parisian knick-knacks, she told them.
"Come around to the hotel," she suggested, "all of you: why not now?"

And so it was that the stream of things gayest caught Molly and
Molly's daughter into its swirl. The banks along the way were flowery,
the sky was blue, and Alexina began to find the waters of dalliance
sweet. Hitherto girlish groups had seemed to make themselves up and
leave her out, and there always had been a disconcerting lack of
things to talk about in dressing-rooms and strictly feminine
assemblies. Now she found herself in the planning and the whirl, happy
as any.

There was exhilaration, too, in this sudden realization of what an
income meant, which she had not had much opportunity of learning
before, and these days she laughed out of very exuberance and sudden
joy in living.

"It seems as if I didn't really know you, sometimes," said the literal
Georgy, out calling with her one evening. "It makes you awful pretty,
you know, to be jolly this way," which was meant to be more
complimentary than it sounded.

They were stepping up on the porch of the house to which they were
bound. Alexina laughed and caught a handful of