eeded in possibilities by a fairy mind which can turn
any ordinary, commonplace, matter-of-fact thing into a delightful
"experience."

But something had happened during the afternoon which decided what to
do about the party. They were walking west in Thirty-Third Street,
past the Waldorf, when a lady came out to get into her auto. Godmother
greeted her delightedly and introduced Mary Alice. But the lady's name
overpowered Mary Alice and completely tied her tongue during the
moment's chat.

"I used to see her a great deal, in Dresden," said Godmother when they
had gone on their way, "and she's a dear. We must go and see her as
she asked us to, and have her down to see us." Godmother spoke as if a
very celebrated prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera were no different
from any one else one might happen to know. Mary Alice couldn't get
used to it.

"I--I guess I manage better when I don't know so much," she said,
smiling rather wofully and remembering the man of many millions to whom
she had been "nice" because she thought he was homeless and hungry.

So to the "party" they went and never an inkling had Mary Alice where
it was to be or whether she was to see more captains of finance or more
nightingales of song, "or what."

VI

THE "LION" OF THE EVENING

The house they entered was not at all pretentious. It was an
old-fashioned house in that older part of New York in which Godmother
herself lived--only further south. But it was a remodelled house; the
old, high "stoop" had been taken away, and one entered, from the street
level, what had once been a basement dining-room but was now a kind of
reception hall. Here they left their wraps in charge of a well-bred
maid whom Godmother called by name and seemed to know. And then they
went up-stairs. Mary Alice was "all panicky inside," but she kept
trying to remember the Secret.

Their hostess was a middle-aged lady, very plain but motherly-looking.
She wore her hair combed in a way that would have been considered
"terribly old-fashioned" in Mary Alice's home town, and she had on
several large cameos very like some Mary Alice's mother had and scorned
to wear.

Mary Alice was reasonably sure this lady was not "a millionairess or
anything like that," and she didn't think she was another prima donna.
The lady's name meant nothing to her.

"Well," their hostess said as Godmother greeted her, "now the party
_can_ begin--here's Mary Alice! _Two_ Mary Alic