their respective mammas in their rush to get to
the windows.

"Grace," said Miss Van Schaick, who had never before called her anything
but "Miss--er--Goodchild," "send out and tell them to stop and face this
way. I don't think I read all the sandwiches."

"Yes! Yes!"

"Oh, do!"

"Please, Grace, tell 'em!" It sounded like election, when women shall
vote. Much more melodious than to-day.

The dowagers were made speechless. They had acquired that habit before
their daughters.

Grace capitulated to the incense.

"Frederick, go out and tell them to stop and face this way," commanded
Grace, with a benignant smile.

"My de--" began Mrs. Goodchild, mildly.

"I have lived," said Miss Van Schaick in her high-bred, level voice that
people admiringly called insulting, "to see a New York society man do
something really original. I must ask Beekman Rutgers why his branch of
the family did not inherit brains with the real estate."

Mrs. Goodchild gasped--and began to look resigned. From there to pride
the jump would be slight. But hers was not a mind that readjusted itself
very quickly.

"Oh, look!" and the girls began to read the legends aloud.

The dowagers rose, prompted by the same horrid fear. Chauffeurs were bad
enough. But sandwich-men!

The world moves rapidly these days. One week ago these mothers did not
know sandwich-men even existed. A new peril springs up every day.

They decided, being wise, not to scold their daughters.

The girls shook hands with Grace with such warmth that she felt as if
each had left a hateful wedding-gift in her palm. Mrs. Goodchild went
up-stairs weeping or very close to it. She could not see whither it all
would lead, and she was the kind that must plan everything in advance to
be comfortable. By always using a memorandum calendar she cleverly
managed to have something to look forward to in this life.

Grace remained. She was thinking. When she thought she always tapped on
the floor with her right foot, rhythmically. She realized that H. R.'s
courtship of her had changed in aspect. She knew that girls in her set
thought everything was a lark. But they themselves did not visit those
who had larked beyond a certain point. An ecstatic "What fun!" soon
changed to a frigid "How perfectly silly!" It was not so difficult to
treat the sandwich episode humorously now, or even to take intelligent
advantage of the publicity. She knew that, with the negligible exception
of a few old fogie