nd resorts, and with actresses, dancers,--and mannequins. Janet's eyes
fell on the open page to perceive that the coiffure her sister so
painfully imitated was worn by a young woman with an insolent, vapid face
and hard eyes, whose knees were crossed, revealing considerably more than
an ankle. The picture was labelled, "A dance at Palm Beach--A flashlight
of Mrs. 'Trudy' Gascoigne-Schell,"--one of those mysterious, hybrid names
which, in connection with the thoughts of New York and the visible rakish
image of the lady herself, cause involuntary shudders down the spine of
the reflecting American provincial. Some such responsive quiver, akin to
disgust, Janet herself experienced.

"It's the very last scream," Lise was saying. "And say, if I owned a ball
dress like that I'd be somebody's Lulu all right! Can I have the pleasure
of the next maxixe, Miss Bumpus?" With deft and rapid fingers she lead
parted her hair far on the right side and pulled it down over the left
eyebrow, twisted it over her ear and tightly around her head, inserting
here and there a hairpin, seizing the hand mirror with the cracked back,
and holding it up behind her. Finally, when the operation was finished to
her satisfaction she exclaimed, evidently to the paragon in the picture,
"I get you!" Whereupon, from the wardrobe, she produced a hat. "You sure
had my number when you guessed the feathers on that other would get
draggled," she observed in high good humour, generously ignoring their
former unpleasantness on the subject. When she had pinned it on she bent
mockingly over her sister, who sat on the bed. "How d'you like my new
toque? Peekaboo! That's the way the guys rubberneck to see if you're good
lookin'."

Lise was exalted, feverish, apparently possessed by some high secret; her
eyes shone, and when she crossed the room she whistled bars of ragtime
and executed mincing steps of the maxixe. Fumbling in the upper drawer
for a pair of white gloves (also new), she knocked off the corner of the
bureau her velvet bag; it opened as it struck the floor, and out of it
rolled a lilac vanity case and a yellow coin. Casting a suspicious,
lightning glance at Janet, she snatched up the vanity case and covered
the coin with her foot.

"Lock the doors!" she cried, with an hysteric giggle. Then removing her
foot she picked up the coin surreptitiously. To her amazement her sister
made no comment, did not seem to have taken in the significance of the
episode. Li