s. Gray and empty had been
Cally's days since a New Year's moment in the library....

"But you'll not find any servants up here, my dear!--unless you expect
to throw bags over their heads and kidnap them?"

"I'd like to," laughed Hen, friendly elbows on the car door. "And then
give them the bastinado every hour on the hour. Think of Hortense's
doing us so when we've all been perfect mothers to her for a year. But
I've come up here just to get an address, from Mrs. J.T. Carney, and
now I'm off to Little Africa, pleasant but determined."

"Jackson Ward?"

"No," said Hen, producing and consulting a scrap of paper, "it's South
Africa this time--106A Dunbar Street. You know--down along the Canal."

"Hop in," said Cally, listlessly. "I'll drive you down there." "Perish
the thought!" ejaculated Hen, in some surprise. "You don't want to go
exploring the slum districts, finding out how the other half lives. I'll
like the walk--"

But Carlisle insisted, being out only because she was bored with being
in, and Hen hopped in, not altogether reluctantly. By request she
repeated the Ethiopian address to the chauffeur, himself of that tongue
and nation; and off the cousins bowled.

"Bored? How's this, Cally? I hear on all sides that it's the gayest
winter in ten years. You're not tired of parties, at your age?"

"Oh, I'm crazy about them," said Cally, indifferently, yet drawing
comfort from the sound of her own voice. "But one can't have parties
every hour of the day, you know. There are always chinks to be filled
up, and that is where one's background comes in. My background has a
violent attack of indigestion just now. Everything's horrid.--_Ohh_! Why
_will_ a dog take chances like that?..."

"How's Uncle Thornton?" said Hen, holding her hat on with a hand that
looked hard-worked. "I don't believe I've seen him since that day we all
came to dinner--"

"Oh, he's well, I suppose, but he's out of spirits a good deal of the
time, which I _will_ say is unusual for papa. I think he's probably
worried about business or ... Who was that old man that stared at me so?
He looked as if I ought to know him."

"Where?" said Hen, glancing back. "Oh!--there under the tree? Why,
that's Colonel Dalhousie. You know--"

"Oh!" said Cally, immediately regretting having spoken. To relieve the
baldness of her exclamation, she added: "I thought he was a rather
younger man than that."

"He's broken dreadfully in the last few months--that's pro