ssy for so early, of course, Minnie," she said, "but
I wish you'd see some of the other women! Breakfast looked like an
afternoon reception. What would you think of pinning this black velvet
ribbon around my head?"

"It might have done twenty years ago, Miss Cobb," I answered, "but I
wouldn't advise it now." I was working at the slot-machine, and I heard
her sniff behind me as she hung up her mirror on the window-frame.

She tried the curler on the curtain, which she knows I object to, but
she was too full of her subject to be sulky for long.

"I wish you could see Blanche Moody!" she began again, standing holding
the curler, with a thin wreath of smoke making a halo over her head.
"Drawn in--my dear, I don't see how she can breathe! I guess there's no
doubt about Mr. von Inwald."

"I'd like to know who put this beer check in the slot-machine
yesterday," I said as indifferently as I could. "What about Mr. von
Inwald?"

She tiptoed over to me, the halo trailing after her.

"About his being a messenger from the prince to Miss Jennings!" she
answered in a whisper. "He spent last night closeted with papa, and
the chambermaid on that floor told Lily Biggs that there was almost a
quarrel."

"That doesn't mean anything," I objected. "If the Angel Gabriel was shut
in with Mr. Jennings for ten minutes he'd be blowing his trumpet for
help."

Miss Cobb shrugged her shoulders and took hold of a fresh wisp of hair
with the curler.

"I dare say," she assented, "but the Angel Gabriel wouldn't have
waited to breakfast with Miss Jennings, and have kissed her hand before
everybody at the foot of the stairs!"

"Is he handsome?" I asked, curious to know how he would impress other
women. But Miss Cobb had never seen a man she would call ugly.

"Handsome!" she said. "My dear, he's beautiful! He has a duel scar on
his left cheek--all the nobility have them over there. I've a cousin
living in Berlin--she's the wittiest person--and she says the German
child of the future will be born with a scarred left cheek!"

Well, I was sick enough of hearing of Mr. von Inwald before the day was
over. All morning in the spring-house they talked Mr. von Inwald. They
pretended to play cards, but they were really playing European royalty.
Every time somebody laid down a queen, he'd say, "Is the queen still
living, or didn't she die a few years ago?" And when they played the
knave, they'd start off about the prince again. They'd all decided that