heresy caused Mannie to gasp aloud; "You look grand in them," he
protested; "don't she, Mabel?"

"Sure she does," assented that lady.

"And your junk?" demanded Mannie, referring to the jade necklace and the
gold-plated bracelets. His eyes opened in sympathy. "You haven't pawned
them, have you?"

"Pawned them?" laughed Vera; "I couldn't get anything on them!" As
the only masculine point of view available, she appealed to Mannie
wistfully. "Don't you like me better this way, Mannie?" she begged.

But that critic protested violently.

"Not a bit like it," he cried. "Now, in the gold tiara and the spangled
opera cloak," he differentiated, "you look like a picture postal card!
You got Lotta Faust's blue skirt back to Levey's. But not in the white
goods!" He shook his head sadly, firmly. "You look, now, like you was
made up for a May-day picnic in the Bronx, and they'd picked on you to
be Queen of the May."

Mabel carried the much-admired opera cloak to Vera, and held it out,
tempting her. "You'll wear it, just to please me and Mannie, won't you,
dearie?" she begged. Vera retreated before it as though it held the
germs of contagion.

"I will not," she rebelled. "I hate it! When I have that on, I
feel--mean. I feel as mean as though I were picking pennies out of a
blind man's hat." Mannie roared with delight.

"Gee!" he shouted, "but that's a hot one."

"Besides," said Vera consciously, "I'm--I'm expecting some one."

The manner more than the words thrilled Mabel with the most joyful
expectations.

She exclaimed excitedly. "A gentleman friend, Vera?" she asked.

That Vera shunned all young men had been to Mabel a source of wonder and
of pride. Even when the young men were the friends of her husband and
of herself, the preoccupied manner with which Vera received them did not
provoke in Mabel any resentment. It rather increased her approbation.
Although horrified at the recklessness of the girl, she had approved
even when Vera rejected an offer of marriage from a wine agent.

Secretly, for a proper alliance for her, Mabel read the society columns
in search of eligible, rich young men. Finding that they invariably
married eligible, rich young women, she had lately determined that
Vera's destiny must be an English duke.

Still if, as she hoped, Vera had chosen for herself, Mabel felt assured
that the man would prove worthy, and a good match. A good match meant
one who owned not only a runabout, but a touring car.