-and-mortar ugliness, and among the trees tiny lights
were strung. Along the parapet were rows of geometrical boxwood plants
in bright red crocks, and the flaps of a crimson and white tent had
been thrown open, showing lights within, and rugs, wicker chairs, and
cushions.

Max raised a glass of benedictine and posed for a moment,
melodramatically.

"To the Wilson roof garden!" he said. "To Kit, who inspired; to the
creators, who perspired; and to Takahiro--may he not have expired."

Every one was very gay; I think the knowledge that tomorrow Aunt Selina
might be with them urged them to make the most of this last night of
freedom. I tried to be jolly, and succeeded in being feverish. Mr.
Harbison did not come up to enjoy what he had wrought. Jim brought up
his guitar and sang love songs in a beautiful tenor, looking at Bella
all the time. And Bella sat in a steamer chair, with a rug over her and
a spangled veil on her head, looking at the boats on the river--about as
soft and as chastened as an an acetylene headlight.

And after Max had told the most improbable tale, which Leila advised him
to sprinkle salt on, and Dallas had done a clog dance, Bella said it
was time for her complexion sleep and went downstairs, and broke up the
party.

"If she only give half as an much care to her immortal soul," Anne said
when she had gone, "as she does to her skin, she would let that nice
Harbison boy alone. She must have been brutal to him tonight, for he
went to bed at nine o'clock. At least, I suppose he went to bed, for he
shut himself in the studio, and when I knocked he advised me not to come
in."

I had pleaded my headache as an excuse for avoiding Aunt Selina all day,
and she had not sent for me. Bella was really quite extraordinary.
She was never in the habit of putting herself out for any one, and she
always declared that the very odor of a sick room drove her to Scotch
and soda. But here she was, rubbing Aunt Selina's back with chloroform
liniment--and you know how that smells--getting her up in a chair,
dressed in one of Bella's wadded silk robes, with pillows under her
feet, and then doing her hair in elaborate puffs--braiding her gray
switch and bringing it, coronet-fashion, around the top of her head.
She even put rice powder on Aunt Selina's nose, and dabbed violet water
behind her ears, and said she couldn't understand why she (Aunt Selina)
had never married, but, of course, she probably would some day!

The