ey sent the girls to Bryn Mawr last week and turned
her adrift, almost penniless. She wished to go back to France. I
engaged her as assistant chaperone for the season."

Mrs. Waldeaux's eyebrows went up significantly. She never commented in
words on the affairs of others, but her face always was indiscreet.
George, who had come up in time to hear the last words, was not so
scrupulous. He surveyed the young woman through his spectacles as she
passed again, with cold disapproval.

"French or German?" he asked.

"I really don't know. She has a singular facility in tongues," said
Miss Vance.

"Well, that is not the companion _I_ should have chosen for those
innocent little girls," he said authoritatively, glad to be
disagreeable to his cousin. "She looks like a hawk among doves."

"The woman is harmless enough," said Miss Vance tartly. "She speaks
exquisite French."

"But what does she say in it?" persisted George. "She is vulgar from
her red pompon to her boots. She has the swagger of a soubrette and
she has left a trail of perfume behind her--pah! I confess I am
surprised at you, Miss Vance. You do not often slip in your judgment."

"Don't make yourself unpleasant, George," said his mother gently. Miss
Vance smiled icily, and as the girls came near again, stopped them and
stood talking to Mlle. Arpent with an aggressive show of familiarity.

"Why do you worry Clara?" said Mrs. Waldeaux. "She knows she has made
a mistake. What do you think of that little blonde girl?" she asked
presently, watching him anxiously. "She has remarkable beauty,
certainly; but there is something finical--precise----"

"Take care. She will hear you," said George. "Beauty, eh? Oh, I
don't know," indifferently. "She is passably pretty. I have never
seen a woman yet whose beauty satisfied ME."

Mrs. Waldeaux leaned back with a comfortable little laugh. "But you
must not be so hard to please, my son. You must bring me my daughter
soon," she said.

"Not very soon. I have some thing else to think of than marriage for
the next ten years."

Just then Dr. Watts came up and asked leave to present his friend
Perry. The doctor, like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, had
succumbed to her peculiar charm, which was only that of a woman past
her youth who had strong personal magnetism and not a spark of
coquetry. George's friends all were sure that they would fall in love
with a woman just like her--but not a man of t