a mirror--preferred to think of herself as an ashen blonde,
and also as about a foot taller than she was. Persistence kept this
picture habitually in her mind, which, of course, helps to explain her
feeling that she was justified in wearing that manner of
superciliousness deplored by her mother. More middle-aged gentlemen than
are suspected believe that they look like the waspen youths in the
magazine advertisements of clothes; and this impression of theirs
accounts (as with Florence) for much that is seemingly inexplicable in
their behaviour.

Florence's Aunt Julia was reading an exquisitely made little book, which
bore her initials stamped in gold upon the cover; and it had evidently
reached her by a recent delivery of the mail, for wrappings bearing
cancelled stamps lay upon the floor beside the _chaise longue_. It was a
special sort of book, since its interior was not printed, but all
laboriously written with pen and ink--poems, in truth, containing more
references to a lady named Julia than have appeared in any other poems
since Herrick's. So warmly interested in the reading as to be rather
pink, though not always with entire approval, this Julia nevertheless,
at the sound of footsteps, closed the book and placed it beneath one of
the cushions assisting the _chaise longue_ to make her position a
comfortable one. Her greeting was not enthusiastic.

"What do you want, Florence?"

"I was going to ask you if Herbert and me--I mean: Was it Noble Dill
gave you Fifi and Mimi, Aunt Julia?"

"Noble Dill? No."

"I wish it was," Florence said. "I'd like these cats better if they were
from Noble Dill."

"Why?" Julia inquired. "Why are you so partial to Mr. Noble Dill?"

"I think he's _so_ much the most inter'sting looking of all that come to
see you. Are you _sure_ it wasn't Noble Dill gave you these cats, Aunt
Julia?"

A look of weariness became plainly visible upon Miss Julia Atwater's
charming face. "I do wish you'd hurry and grow up, Florence," she said.

"I do, too! What for, Aunt Julia?"

"So there'd be somebody else in the family of an eligible age. I really
think it's an outrageous position to be in," Julia continued, with
languid vehemence--"to be the only girl between thirteen and forty-one
in a large connection of near relatives, including children, who all
seem to think they haven't anything to think of but Who comes to see
her, and Who came to see her yesterday, and Who was here the day before,
and W