nicknames we've got for
each other. But they won't slip out. I'm too fond of calling you
Estelle. Don't you _love_ to call me Aurora? Hat, how did I behave,
far as you could see?"

"Nell, if I hadn't known you, and had just been seeing you for the first
time, I should have said to myself: 'What a fine, good-looking,
beautifully dressed, refined, and ladylike woman that is! Wish t' I
might make her acquaintance.' And what would you have said, if you'd
seen me, never having met me before?"

"I should have said: 'What a bright, smart, intelligent, and rarely
beautiful girl! So well dressed, too, and slender as a worm! A queen of
society. I do like her looks! She's the spittin' image of my little
friend Hattie Carver, the schoolmarm in East Boston, that I used to
know!' Oh, Hat, the _queerest_ thing! What do you suppose I saw
this evening at that lovely house full of lovely people? I was in the
library learning to dance. And I looked up and there was what I took to
be a young man smoking a cigarette. Next thing, I saw that his dress was
low-necked almost down to the waist. Hat, it was a _woman_ smoking!
a woman with her hair cut short. I never saw anything like it, except an
old Irishwoman once, with her pipe."

"Seems to me I've heard of ladies in Europe doing it, and it being
considered all right. I _have_ heard that some do it in New York,
but I guess they're careful not to be seen."

"Well, it does seem a queer thing to do!--Go ahead, Hat; what was the
compliment?"

"Sure, now, you've got one for me?"

"Sure."

"It was What's-his-name, the English fellow we see every time we go in
to Cook's--Mr. Dysart. Leslie says he comes of a very good family. He
said to me, 'How very charming Mrs. Hawthorne is looking this evening!'"

"Hattie, that man's a humbug, that man's leading a double life. He said
to me, 'How very charming Miss Madison is looking this evening!' He
did."

"Go 'way! You're making it up to save trouble."

"No, I ain't! Stop, Hattie! I know! I _am not_. Confusion upon it!
You've made me so nervous when I talk that I can't say ain't without
jumping as if I'd sat on a pin!"

"Nell Goodwin, look me square in the eye. How many times did you say
ain't at the party this evening?"

"Not once; I swear it. I was looking out every minute. 'I am not,' I
said; 'We are not,' I said; 'He doesn't,' I said; 'He isn't,' I said.
There! Between you'n' I, Hat, it's a dreadful nuisance, keeping my mind
on the way I