rical, sallow face
looking almost livid in contrast with a terrible gown which she spoke of
with pride as "this sweet, gaslight-green frock of mine."

"Mother, Mr. Hayden has come in with me for a cup of tea. He doesn't know
yet that you make the very best tea in all the world." Marcia's voice, in
speaking to her mother, seemed to take on an added gentleness. It struck
Hayden that so she might speak to a small child.

Mrs. Oldham greeted Hayden most graciously, but he could not fail to
notice that she turned to her daughter with an indefinable displeasure in
both glance and manner. She was a small woman, barely as high as Marcia's
shoulder; a surprise always, when noted, for the carriage of her head and
shoulders gave the impression of her being above medium height; she had
evidently been an extremely pretty creature of the Dresden-china type,
and she still bore the manner and assurance of beauty, fortifying this
mental attitude by a genius for dress. Thus she succeeded in maintaining
an illusion perfectly satisfactory to herself, if not quite to others,
for it was rather a hungry beast of an illusion and demanded constant
oblation and sacrifice.

Her hair, like Marcia's, was dark with the same loose and heavy waves,
and her features exhibited the same delicate regularity; but the strength
and sweetness of character so marked in the daughter's face were lacking
in the mother's. Two rather striking blemishes on the older woman's
beauty, a wandering eye and a scar on the soft cheek, she took her own
peculiar method of ignoring, thus completely and effectively discounting
any unfavorable opinion in the mind of the beholder. Consequently, she
frequently referred to them, never as blemishes, but as slight but
significant evidences of a distinctive and distinguished individuality.

"Oh, Marcia! What a dream of a hat!" cried Kitty. "And new. It's a Henri
Dondel or a Carlier."

Marcia laughed her gentle and charming laugh. "Yes, it's new and I'm so
glad you like it."

"New, new, new," said her mother petulantly. "It's something new every
day. I never saw such a spendthrift. It's a good thing my wants are so
few."

Marcia did not appear to hear this, and almost immediately her attention
was taken up by the entrance of Wilfred Ames, big, stolid and
good-looking, while hard upon his heels followed Horace Penfield.

Mrs. Oldham, seeing that Penfield had gravitated toward the three women,
Edith Symmes, Kitty and Bea, and th