ad worn to the club in a wad
on a closet hook, disregarding its perfumed hanger, turned upon them.

"Heah, ye chillun," said she, "your ma sid for you to go to baid."

Each little girl had her white bed with a canopy of pink silk in a
charming room. There were garlands of rosebuds on the wallpaper and
the furniture was covered with rosebud chintz.

While their mother was indignantly sailing across the North River,
her daughters lay awake, building air-castles about themselves and
their boy-lovers, which fevered their imaginations, and aged them
horribly in a spiritual sense.

"Amy White's mother plays dominoes with her every evening," Maida
remarked. Her voice sounded incredibly old, full of faint
derisiveness and satire, but absolutely non-complaining.

"Amy White's mother would look awfully funny in a gown like Mamma's,"
said Adelaide.

"I suppose that is why she plays dominoes with Amy," said Maida in
her old voice.

"Oh, don't talk any more, Maida, I want to go to sleep," said
Adelaide pettishly, but she was not in the least sleepy. She wished
to return to the air-castle in which she had been having sweet
converse with Jim Carr. This air-castle was the abode of innocence,
but it was not yet time for its building at all. It was such a little
childish creature who lay curled up under the coverlid strewn with
rosebuds that the gates of any air-castle of life and love, and
knowledge, however innocent and ignorant, should have been barred
against her, perhaps with dominoes.

However, she entered in, her soft cheeks burning, and her pulse
tingling, and saw the strange light through its fairy windows, and
her sister also entered her air-castle, and all the time their mother
was sailing across the North River toward the pier where her husband
waited. She kept one gloved hand upon the fold of her gown, ready to
clutch it effectually clear of the dirty deck when the pier was
reached. When she was in the taxicab with Wilbur, she thought again
of Von Rosen. "Dominie von Rosen made a mistake," said she, "and
called up the wrong number. He wanted Doctor Sturtevant, and he got
me." Then she repeated the message. "What do you suppose he was
doing with a fainting Syrian girl in his house?" she ended.

A chuckle shook the dark bulk in its fur lined coat at her side. "The
question is why the Syrian girl chose Von Rosen's house to faint in,"
said he lightly.

"Oh, don't be funny, Wilbur," said Margaret. "Have you seen the