e
may be dead."

"You have made a mistake, Mr. von Rosen," said Mrs. Edes' thin voice,
as thin and silvery as a reed. "You are speaking to Mrs. Wilbur Edes.
My telephone number is 5R. You doubtless want Doctor Sturtevant. His
number is 51M."

"Oh, pardon," cried the voice over the telephone. "Sorry to have
disturbed you, Mrs. Edes, I mistook--"

The voice trailed into nothingness. There was a sharp ring. Mrs. Edes
hung up her receiver. She thought slowly that it was a strange
circumstance that Mr. von Rosen should have a fainting or dead young
Syrian girl in his house. Then she rose from the divan, holding her
head very stiffly, and began to dress. She had just enough time to
dress leisurely and catch the train. She called on one of the two
maids to assist her and was quite equipped, even to the little mink
toque, fastened very carefully on her shining head, when there was a
soft push at the door, and her twin daughters, Maida and Adelaide,
entered. They were eight years old, but looked younger. They were
almost exactly alike as to small, pretty features and pale blond
colouring. Maida scowled a little, and Adelaide did not, and people
distinguished them by that when in doubt.

They stood and stared at their mother with a curious expression on
their sharp, delicate little faces. It was not exactly admiration, it
was not wonder, nor envy, nor affection, yet tinctured by all.

Mrs. Edes looked at them. "Maida," said she, "do not wear that blue
hair-ribbon again. It is soiled. Have you had your dinners?"

"Yes, mamma," responded first one, then the other, Maida with the
frown being slightly in the lead.

"Then you had better go to bed," said Mrs. Edes, and the two little
girls stood carefully aside to allow her to pass.

"Good night, children," said Mrs. Edes without turning her
mink-crowned head. The little girls watched the last yellow swirl of
their mother's skirts, disappearing around the stair-landing, then
Adelaide spoke.

"I mean to wear red, myself, when I'm grown up," said she.

"Ho, just because Jim Carr likes red," retorted Maida. "As for me, I
mean to have a gown just like hers, only a little deeper shade of
yellow."

Adelaide laughed, an unpleasantly snarling little laugh. "Ho," said
she, "just because Val Thomas likes yellow."

Then the coloured maid, Emma, who was cross because Mrs. Edes'
evening out had deprived her of her own, and had been ruthlessly
hanging her mistress's gown which she h