existence, such facts as she instinctively guarded from Albertina's
calculating sense.

* * * * *

"Everybody makes fun of me here. I don't care if they do, but I can't
eat so much at the table when every one is laughing at me. They get
me to talking and then they laugh. If I could see anything to laugh
at, I would laugh too. They laugh in a refined way but they laugh.
They call me Margaret's protegay. They are good to me too. They say to
my face that I am like a merry wilkins story and too good to be true,
and New England projuces lots of real art, and I am art, I can't
remember all the things, but I guess they mean well. Aunt Margaret's
grandfather sits at the head of the table, and talks about things I
never heard of before. He knows the govoner and does not like the way
he parts his hair. I thought all govoners did what they wanted to with
their hairs or anything and people had to like it because (I used to
spell because wrong but I spell better now) they was the govoners, but
it seems not at all.

"Aunt Margaret is lovely to me. We have good times. I meant to like
Aunt Beulah the best because she has done the most for me but I am
afrayd I don't. I would not cross my heart and say so. Aunt Margaret
gives me the lessons now. I guess I learn most as much as I learned I
mean was taught of Aunt Beulah. Oh dear sometimes I get descouraged
on account of its being such a funny world and so many diferent people
in it. And so many diferent feelings. I was afrayd of the hired
butler, but I am not now."

* * * * *

Eleanor had not made a direct change from the Washington Square studio
to the ample house of the Hutchinsons, and it was as well for her that
a change in Jimmie's fortunes had taken her back to the Winchester and
enabled her to accustom herself again to the amenities of gentler
living. Like all sensitive and impressionable children she took on the
color of a new environment very quickly. The strain of her studio
experience had left her a little cowed and unsure of herself, but she
had brightened up like a flower set in the cheerful surroundings of
the Winchester and under the influence of Jimmie's restored spirits.

The change had come about on Jimmie's "last day of grace." He had
secured the coveted position at the Perkins agency at a slight advance
over the salary he had received at the old place. He had left Eleanor
in th