rings of Broadway. Quiet, elderly gentlemen from Cincinnati,
Louisville, and Indianapolis, who went to the casino to read the
newspapers or to play bridge, grinned when Marian turned things upside
down. If any one else had improvised a bowling-alley of ginger-ale
bottles and croquet-balls on the veranda, they would have complained of
it bitterly. She was impatient of restraint, and it was apparent that
few restraints were imposed upon her. Her sophistication in certain
directions was to Sylvia well-nigh incomprehensible. In matters of
personal adornment, for example, the younger girl's accomplishments were
astonishing. She taught Sylvia how to arrange her hair in the latest
fashion promulgated by "Vogue"; she instructed her in the refined art of
manicuring according to the method of the best shop in Indianapolis; and
it was amazing how wonderfully Marian could improve a hat by the
slightest readjustments of ribbon and feather. She tested the world's
resources like a spoiled princess with an indulgent chancellor to pay
her bills. She gave a party and ordered the refreshments from Chicago,
though her mother protested that the domestic apparatus for making
ice-cream was wholly adequate for the occasion. When she wanted new
tennis shoes she telegraphed for them; and she kept in her room a small
library of mail-order catalogues to facilitate her extravagances.

Marian talked a great deal about boys, and confided to Sylvia her
sentimental attachment for one of the lads they saw from day to day, and
with whom they played tennis at the casino court. For the first time
Sylvia heard a girl talk of men as of romantic beings, and of love as a
part of the joy and excitement of life. A young gentleman in a Gibson
drawing which she had torn from an old copy of "Life" more nearly
approximated Marian's ideal than even the actors of her remote
adoration. She had a great number of gowns and was quite reckless in her
use of them. She tried to confer upon Sylvia scarf pins, ties, and like
articles, for which she declared she had not the slightest use. In the
purchase of soda water and candy at the casino, where she scribbled her
father's initials on the checks, or at the confectioner's in the village
where she enjoyed a flexible credit, her generosity was prodigal. She
was constantly picking up other youngsters and piloting them on
excursions that her ready fancy devised; and if they returned late for
meals or otherwise incurred parental dis