me hour her message arrived and heard the family's
comments on it, it is very doubtful if she would have swung herself aboard
the parlor car of the Transcontinental, without the porter's help, and
sought her seat.

The Starkweathers lived in very good style, indeed. The mansion was one of
several remaining in that section, all occupied by the very oldest and
most elevated socially of New York's solid families. They were not people
whose names appeared in the gossip columns of the papers to any extent;
but to live in their neighborhood, and to meet them socially, was
sufficient to insure one's welcome anywhere.

The Starkweather mansion had descended to Willets Starkweather with the
money--all from his great-uncle--which had finally put the family upon its
feet. When Prince Morrell had left New York under a cloud, his
brother-in-law was a struggling merchant himself.

Now, in sixteen years, he had practically retired. At least, he was no
longer "in trade." He merely went to an office, or to his broker's, each
day, and watched his investments and his real estate holdings.

A pompous, well-fed man was Willets Starkweather--and always imposingly
dressed. He was very bald, wore a closely cropped gray beard, eyeglasses,
and "Ahem!" was an introduction to almost everything he said. That
clearing of the bronchial tubes was an announcement to the listening world
that he, Willets Starkweather, of Madison Avenue, was about to make a
remark. And no matter how trivial that remark might be, coming from the
lips of the great man, it should be pondered upon and regarded with awe.

Mr. Starkweather was a widower. Helen's Aunt Eunice had been dead three
years. It had never been considered necessary by either Mr. Starkweather,
or his daughters, to write "Aunt Mary's folks in Montana" of Mrs.
Starkweather's death.

Correspondence between the families had ceased at the time of Mrs.
Morrell's death. The Starkweather girls understood that Aunt Mary's
husband had "done something" before he left New York for the wild and
woolly West. The family did not--Ahem!--speak of him.

The three girls were respectively eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen. Even
Flossie considered herself entirely grown up. She attended a private
school not far from Central Park, and went each day dressed as elaborately
as a matron of thirty.

For Hortense, who was just Helen Morrell's age, "school had become a
bore." She had a smattering of French, knew how to drum nic