. "That is
really the truth--I don't care for this sort of thing at all. I'd like
to live simply, and without so many cares and responsibilities. And
some day I'm going to do it, too--I really am. I'm going to get myself
a little farm, away off somewhere in the country. And I'm going there
to live and raise chickens and vegetables, and have my own
flower-gardens, that I can take care of myself. It will all be plain
and simple--" and then Mrs. Winnie stopped short, exclaiming, "You are
laughing at me!"

"Not at all!" said Montague. "But I couldn't help thinking about the
newspaper reporters--"

"There you are!" said she. "One can never have a beautiful dream, or
try to do anything sensible--because of the newspaper reporters!"

If Montague had been meeting Mrs. Winnie Duval for the first time, he
would have been impressed by her yearnings for the simple life; he
would have thought it an important sign of the times. But alas, he knew
by this time that his charming hostess had more flummery about her than
anybody else he had encountered--and all of her own devising! Mrs.
Winnie smoked her own private brand of cigarettes, and when she offered
them to you, there were the arms of the old ducal house of Montmorenci
on the wrappers! And when you got a letter from Mrs. Winnie, you
observed a three-cent stamp upon the envelope--for lavender was her
colour, and two-cent stamps were an atrocious red! So one might feel
certain that it Mrs. Winnie ever went in for chicken-raising, the
chickens would be especially imported from China or Patagonia, and the
chicken-coops would be precise replicas of those in the old Chateau de
Montmorenci which she had visited in her automobile.

But Mrs. Winnie was beautiful, and quite entertaining to talk to, and
so he was respectfully sympathetic while she told him about her
pastoral intentions. And then she told him about Mrs. Caroline Smythe,
who had called a meeting of her friends at one of the big hotels, and
organized a society and founded the "Bide-a-Wee Home" for destitute
cats. After that she switched off into psychic research--somebody had
taken her to a seance, where grave college professors and ladies in
spectacles sat round and waited for ghosts to materialize. It was Mrs.
Winnie's first experience at this, and she was as excited as a child
who has just found the key to the jam-closet. "I hardly knew whether to
laugh or to be afraid," she said. "What would you think?"

"You may have