pon her brow--temples--eyes--and rested on her lips.

Flora sat reading a note just come from that same "A.C." Her brother had
gone to call on Victorine. Irby had just bade the reader good-by, to
return soon and go with her to Callender House to see the Bazaar.
Madame Valcour turned from a window with a tart inquiry:

[Illustration: And the next instant she was in his arms]

"And all you had to do was to say yes to him?"

"That would have been much," absently replied the reader, turning a
page.

"'Twould have been little!--to make him rich!--and us also!"

"Not us," said the abstracted girl; "me." Something in the missive
caused her brows to knit.

"And still you trifle!" nagged the grandam, "while I starve! And while
at any instant may arrive--humph--that other fool."

Even this did not draw the reader's glance. "No." she responded. "He
cannot. Irby and Charlie lied to us. He is already here." She was
re-reading.

The grandmother stared, tossed a hand and moved across the floor. As she
passed near the girl's slippered foot it darted out, tripped her and
would have sent her headlong, but she caught by the lamp table. Flora
smiled with a strange whiteness round the lips. Madame righted the
shaken lamp, quietly asking, "Did you do that--h-m-m--for hate of the
lady, or, eh, the ladies' man?"

"The latter," said the reabsorbed girl.

"Strange," sighed the other, "how we can have--at the same time--for the
same one--both feelings."

But Flora's ears were closed. "Well," she audibly mused, "he'll get a
recall."

"Even if it must be forged?" twittered the dame.

XXXVIII

ANNA'S OLD JEWELS

A Reporters' heaven, the Bazaar. So on its opening night Hilary named it
to Flora.

"A faerye realm," the scribes themselves itemed it; "myriad
lights--broad staircases gracef'y asc'd'g--ravish'g perfumes--met our
gaze--garlandries of laurel and magn'a--prom'd'g from room to room--met
our gaze--directed by masters of cerem'y in Conf'te G'd's unif'm--here
turn'g to the right--fair women and brave men--carried thither by the
dense throng--music with its volup's swell--met our gaze--again
descend'g--arriv'g at din'g-hall--new scene of ench't bursts--refr't
tables--enarched with ev'gr's and decked with labarums and
burgees--thence your way lies through--costly volumes and shimm'g
bijoutries--met our gaze!"

It was Kincaid who saw their laborious office in this flippant light,
and so presented it to Anna that sh