autiful statues, and built bridges and churches and palaces,"
the girl assumed.

"Most of them were built before my time, hundreds of years ago. But I
have been in a great many of them."

"And seen the Queen!"

"If you mean Queen Victoria, yes. And other queens as well. And the
Empress of the French when she had her beauty and her throne."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Helen with a long breath. And Aunt Jane had called
her a queer old woman; Aunt Jane, who had never even been to New York.

It was getting too dark to play croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe had gone in some
time ago with her baby in her arms, and somehow it had suggested the
Madonna picture to Helen. The gentlemen smoked and talked. Then Mrs. Van
Dorn rose and bade them good-night, and pressed Helen's hand.

"I think I shall like your little girl very much," she said to Mrs.
Dayton, in the hall. "She's modest and not at all dull."

Mrs. Van Dorn stepped off, as if she was still at middle life. She was
wonderfully well preserved, but then, for almost forty years she had
taken the best of care of herself. She wouldn't have admitted to anyone
that she was past eighty. Sometimes in her travels she had a maid, often
when she was abroad she had both a maid and a man. For two years she
had been traveling about her own country, and seeing the changes.

Yet her life had not been set in rose leaves in her youth. She had
worked hard, had a lover who jilted her for a girl not half as pretty
but rich. And when she was thirty-five, a rich old man married her, and
gave her a lovely home; then, ten years afterward, left her a rich
widow, and told her to have the best time she could. If she could only
have had one little girl! She thought she would adopt one, but the child
with the lovely face had some mean traits, and she provided for her
elsewhere. She traveled, she met entertaining people; she liked refined
society; she acquired a good deal of knowledge with her pleasure.

But to grow old! And one had to some time. At ninety perhaps. What did
Ninon de l'Enclos do, and Madame Recamier? Plenty of fresh air, as much
exercise as she could stand, bathing and massage, cheerfulness, keeping
in touch with the world of to-day, and once-in-a-while a long, quiet
rest, and early to bed as she was doing here. Ah! if one could be set
back twenty years even, twenty real years, and have all that much longer
to live!

The child's admiration had touched her. It was not for her diamonds and
emerald