ion, though it was the wrong counter for them.

"I've just left the dear children at the Rodenstahls'," was the
Graefin's greeting.

"Were they looking very happy?" asked the Baroness.

"Wratislav was wearing some new English clothes, so, of course, he was
quite happy. I overheard him telling Toni a rather amusing story about
a nun and a mousetrap, which won't bear repetition. Elsa was telling
every one else a witticism about the Triple Alliance being like a paper
umbrella--which seems to bear repetition with Christian fortitude."

"Did they seem much wrapped up in each other?"

"To be candid, Elsa looked as if she were wrapped up in a horse-rug.
And why let her wear saffron colour?"

"I always think it goes with her complexion."

"Unfortunately it doesn't. It stays with it. Ugh. Don't forget,
you're lunching with me on Thursday."

The Baroness was late for her luncheon engagement the following
Thursday.

"Imagine what has happened!" she screamed as she burst into the room.

"Something remarkable, to make you late for a meal," said the Graefin.

"Elsa has run away with the Rodenstahls' chauffeur!"

"Kolossal!"

"Such a thing as that no one in our family has ever done," gasped the
Baroness.

"Perhaps he didn't appeal to them in the same way," suggested the
Graefin judicially.

The Baroness began to feel that she was not getting the astonishment
and sympathy to which her catastrophe entitled her.

"At any rate," she snapped, "now she can't marry Wratislav."

"She couldn't in any case," said the Graefin; "he left suddenly for
abroad last night."

"For abroad! Where?"

"For Mexico, I believe."

"Mexico! But what for? Why Mexico?"

"The English have a proverb, 'Conscience makes cowboys of us all.'"

"I didn't know Wratislav had a conscience."

"My dear Sophie, he hasn't. It's other people's consciences that send
one abroad in a hurry. Let's go and eat."

THE EASTER EGG

It was distinctly hard lines for Lady Barbara, who came of good
fighting stock, and was one of the bravest women of her generation,
that her son should be so undisguisedly a coward. Whatever good
qualities Lester Slaggby may have possessed, and he was in some
respects charming, courage could certainly never be imputed to him. As
a child he had suffered from childish timidity, as a boy from unboyish
funk, and as a youth he had exchanged unreasoning fears for others
which were more formidable from the fact of h