is grasped
eagerly. This affair of hers on Saturday is the first thing of the kind
in an age. Her villa at Bellosguardo is most interesting and full of
interesting things. And the view from her terrace is worthy of a
pilgrimage. You perceive, Mrs. Hawthorne, that I am doing what I can to
_faire valoir_ the scrap of entertainment I have to offer."

"I think it perfectly lovely of you! Of course I'll go, and delighted
to. And see how it fits in--" She kindled to joyful enthusiasm. "We've
just bought a lot of her books. We realized we'd got to have some books
to make this room look finished off. We bought hers in paper covers and
have had them beautifully bound. Just look here." She went to take a
specimen from the bookcase, a white parchment volume with gold tooling,
a crimson fleur-de-lys painted on the front cover. "Aren't they lovely?
An idea! We'll take some of them up to her and ask her to write her name
in them. Wouldn't that be flattering?"

"Ye ... es."

"I've been trying to read some of it over since these came home from the
binder's. My! Aren't those people of hers wonderful--where you'd think
the ladies never could have a stomache-ache nor the gentlemen a corn!"

"I hope Miss Madison will not think I forgot her," he disingenuously
said, "when in replying to Mrs. Grangeon's invitation I begged
permission to bring you, and that she will do me the honor some day very
soon--"

"Oh, Estelle won't mind!"

The mention of Estelle seemed to change the color of Mrs. Hawthorne's
thoughts, casting a shadow over them.

"Estelle and I had a spat this morning," she told him.

"Oh!"

"That's why I was sweeping and why she's gone for a walk by herself."

"I'm so sorry!" was all he found to say.

"It doesn't amount to anything," she cheered him. "We've had times of
quarreling all our lives, and we've known each other since we were
children. Her aunt and my grandmother had houses side by side in the
country; there was just a fence between our yards. That's how we first
came to be friends. All our lives we've had the way of sometimes saying
what the other doesn't like. And do you know what's always at the bottom
of it? That each one thinks she knows what would be most for the other's
good to do, and we get so mad because the other won't do what we ourself
think would be best for her! Just as some people abuse you because
you're a pig, we as likely as not abuse the other because she isn't a
pig. One of the biggest fi