e privilege
between masse shots of regarding at close range the tombstones of an
aristocratic cemetery, Helen and her uncle were comfortably lingering
over their demi-tasses before Mr. Osgood's guest gave speech to the
thoughts within her.

"You are a dear to give me this luncheon," she began.

The old gentleman bowed a courtly head.

"I have been envied, I think, by all my more youthful fellow members
here," he said. "And that is very pleasant, even when one might be
supposed to have passed the age of vanity."

"Thank you, Uncle Silas. No one of your fellow members could have said
a nicer thing than that." She fingered her coffee cup. "But I had a
reason for inviting myself--practically--to lunch with you. I want to
ask your advice."

"I'm afraid I should be inclined in advance to let you do exactly as
you liked, my child," said the other, with a smile. "But what is it?
I hope it's not trouble of any sort."

"No--it's not trouble, exactly," his niece responded. "It's more
like--well, like dissatisfaction. I am awfully tired of being a
perfectly useless person, with no definite end and aim. You don't
suppose it's because I see every day the girls coming down to work, on
the Massachusetts Avenue cars, do you? I went a little while ago to my
doctor's because I thought perhaps there was something the matter with
me, and he suggested a change of air, but I think he mixed up the cause
with the effect. Perhaps I do need a change, but it's a change of
interests and a change of what I see and hear and talk about."

"Commonly termed a vacation," said Mr. Osgood.

"Yes, a vacation--that's it. Not a vacation from _doing_ anything,
because I've done nothing, but a vacation from the atmosphere I've been
living in."

"You mean the artistic atmosphere?" her uncle asked. "You are a little
tired of--"

"I'm more than a little--I'm horribly tired of imitations and poses and
make-believes. I want to see things and people who really live, who
don't exist by the light of crimson-shaded globes and spend their days
dreaming about impressions and arrangements and tones and shadows."

Helen wound up this diminutive tirade with quite a little flourish, and
Mr. Osgood looked thoughtfully across the table at her.

"Why don't you run down to New York?" he suggested. "I'm sure your
Aunt Mary Wardrop would be delighted to have you come for a visit."

"Yes. I thought of that. I should like to go there, and I had almost