if I were you, I would
try to forget that I had been 'higher' educated. It's enough to give
one the creeps to hear a perfectly normal girl talk of analytical
trig--whatever that may be--if there is such a thing."

Helen laughed.

"I'm not actually sure, myself, that there is. For, as I remember it
now, it deals almost exclusively with imaginary or worse than imaginary
quantities. I remember distinctly that _i_ with the acute accent meant
the square root of minus one--and stood for 'imaginary' on the face of
it. That was right at the start, and the farther you went the farther
from reality you found yourself. But I don't remember anything of the
subject--only the name--I wouldn't dream of being so Bostonian as that."

"Well, it's almost as bad merely to refer to it," said Miss Hurd.
"Especially when you know that I never could pass beginner's algebra."

The two girls laughed together. It was perfectly true that Isabel, who
was keen almost to the point of brilliance in the application of
mathematics to such practical matters as finance and real life, had
never academically been anything but a hopeless dunce, while Helen, who
had penetrated so far into the upper occult that the mind shuddered to
follow, was notoriously incapable of making her personal accounts
balance within fifty per cent. It was an understood situation that
always amused them both.

They had been friends all their lives, these two, or so nearly all
their lives that the residue was hardly worth consideration. As each
was now nearing the middle twenties, it must have been almost a full
generation since they had been presented to one another. It was at the
respective ages of six and five that little Miss Maitland and little
Miss Hurd had been discreetly conveyed to the decorous Back Bay
Kindergarten which was known to all Bostonians of a certain class as
the "Child's Cultural Institute" of Miss Dorcas Kingsbury. It was
there they met, under the watchful eye and the eagle espionage of Miss
Dorcas. That good lady was not distinguished for her social graces,
but her introduction of these two small maids was an instant success.
It has subsequently been established, by hesper light so to speak, that
the bond which first united the two was their chastened and wide-eyed
mutual marveling at six long black cockscrew curls which marked--for
only by a figure of speech could they have been said to adorn--the
lateral aspects of Miss Dorcas's chignon. Fo