mptation to equivocate for pure perversity's sake was strong upon
Elinor, and she yielded to it.

"How should I know? He has the _Amphitrite_ and the Florida coast, hasn't
he?"

Mrs. Brentwood groaned.

"To think of the way he squanders his money in sheer dissipation!" she
exclaimed. "Of course, he will take an entire house-party with him, as
usual, and the cost of that one cruise would set you up in housekeeping."

Penelope laughed with a younger daughter's license. She was a statuesque
young woman with a pose, ripe lips, flashing white teeth, laughing eyes
with an imp of mischief in them, and an exquisitely turned-up nose that
was neither the Brentwood, which was severely classic, nor the Grimkie,
which was pure Puritan renaissance.

"Which is to intimate that he won't have money enough left to do it when
he comes back," she commented. "I wish there were some way of making him
believe he had to give me what remains of his income after he has spent
all he can on the Florida cruise. I'd wear Worth gowns and be lapped in
luxury for the next ten years at the very least."

"He isn't going to Florida this winter," said Elinor, repenting her of the
small quibble. "He is going West."

Mrs. Brentwood looked up sharply.

"With us?" she queried.

"Yes."

Penelope clasped her hands and tried to look soulful.

"Oh, Ellie!" she said; "have you----"

"No," Elinor retorted; "I have not."

IV

THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT

The westward journey began at the appointed hour in the evening with the
resourceful Ormsby in command; and when the outsetting, in which she had
to sustain only the part of an obedient automaton, was a fact
accomplished, Elinor settled back into the pillowed corner of her
sleeping-car section to enjoy the unwonted sensation of being the one
cared for instead of the caretaker.

She had traveled more or less with her mother and Penelope ever since her
father's death, and was well used to taking the helm. Experience and the
responsibilities had made her self-reliant, and her jesting boast that she
was a dependable young woman was the simple truth. Yet to the most modern
of girl bachelors there may come moments when the soul harks back to the
eternal-womanly, and the desire to be petted and looked after and
safe-conducted is stronger than the bachelor conventions.

Two sections away the inevitable newly married pair posed unconsciously to
point the moral for Miss Brentwood. She marked the eager