ie off at once. The peal was not over when May herself was
upon them demanding what was the joke.

'Oh, there she is! The real May! Why,' said Annaple, kissing her,
'only think here I've been and gone and thought this was you, and
inquired about--What was it?--the awful monster--the chimera dire--that
Mark had routed up--'

'No; you didn't say that,' said Nuttie, half provoked.

'Never mind what I said. Don't repeat it. I only wish myself and
every one else to forget it. Now it is swept to the winds by a good
wholesome giggling. But what business have you two to be so
inconveniently alike? You are as bad as the twin Leslies!'

'There's an old foremother on the staircase in white satin who left her
looks to us both,' said May.

'You'll have to wear badges,' said Annaple. 'You know the Leslies were
so troublesome that one had to be shipped off to the East Indies and
the other to the West.'

'They married, that's all,' said May, seeing Nuttie looking mystified;
and at that moment, Blanche's side coming out victorious, Nuttie
descended into the arena to congratulate and be asked to form part of
the next set.

'Well, that was a scrape!' said Annaple; 'but she wasn't bad about it!
I must do something to make up for it somehow--get Janet to invite her,
but really Janet is in such a state of mind that I am mildness itself
compared with her. She would not have come, only John was curious, and
declared he should go whether we did or not.'

'Ah!' said May, 'I saw him, like the rest of mankind, at madame's feet.'

'Oh! is she of that sort?'

'No,' said May, 'not at all. Mother and father too both think she is
good to the backbone; but she is very pretty, with just the inane soft
sweetness that men rave about--innocent really. All accounts of her
are excellent, and she has nice parish ways, and will be as helpful as
Uncle Alwyn will let her.'

'But she couldn't always have been nice?'

'Well, I verily believe it was all Uncle Alwyn's and grandmamma's
fault. I know Mark thinks so.'

'When the women of a family acquit a woman it goes for something,' said
Annaple. 'That's not original, my dear, I heard old Lady Grosmede say
so to Janet when she was deliberating over the invitation, "For a good
deal more than Mr. Mark's, at any rate.'"

'Mark is very fond of her--the mother, I mean. He says when he was a
little fellow her loss was worse to him than even our mother's.'

'Do you remember the catastrophe?'