d fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line of their
own: what they want is to have a good time, and to have it in their own
way. They gave the other thing a few months' trial, under my
distinguished auspices, and they were really doing extremely
well--getting on a good deal faster than the Brys, just because they
didn't care as much--but suddenly they decided that the whole business
bored them, and that what they wanted was a crowd they could really feel
at home with. Rather original of them, don't you think so? Mattie Gormer
HAS got aspirations still; women always have; but she's awfully
easy-going, and Sam won't be bothered, and they both like to be the most
important people in sight, so they've started a sort of continuous
performance of their own, a kind of social Coney Island, where everybody
is welcome who can make noise enough and doesn't put on airs. I think
it's awfully good fun myself--some of the artistic set, you know, any
pretty actress that's going, and so on. This week, for instance, they
have Audrey Anstell, who made such a hit last spring in 'The Winning of
Winny'; and Paul Morpeth--he's painting Mattie Gormer--and the Dick
Bellingers, and Kate Corby--well, every one you can think of who's jolly
and makes a row. Now don't stand there with your nose in the air, my
dear--it will be a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town, and
you'll find clever people as well as noisy ones--Morpeth, who admires
Mattie enormously, always brings one or two of his set."

Mrs. Fisher drew Lily toward the hansom with friendly authority. "Jump
in now, there's a dear, and we'll drive round to your hotel and have your
things packed, and then we'll have tea, and the two maids can meet us at
the train."

It was a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town--of that no
doubt remained to Lily as, reclining in the shade of a leafy verandah,
she looked seaward across a stretch of greensward picturesquely dotted
with groups of ladies in lace raiment and men in tennis flannels. The
huge Van Alstyne house and its rambling dependencies were packed to their
fullest capacity with the Gormers' week-end guests, who now, in the
radiance of the Sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the
grounds in quest of the various distractions the place afforded:
distractions ranging from tennis-courts to shooting-galleries, from
bridge and whiskey within doors to motors and steam-launches without.
Lily had the o