he had a gorgeous time, and even I came in for plenty of fun;
because it seems that a girl in America ceases to "flap" while she is
still quite young. I was strictly reduced by my elders to "just
sixteen," although my seventeenth birthday was upon me; but there were
men in New York not above talking or tangoing with a girl of sixteen,
and my hair, though only looped up flapper fashion, with a ribbon, was
actually admired. I saw it in the newspapers--not the hair, but the
admiration.

Never were people so hospitable as those kind ones in New York, and
never were houses more beautiful or more luxurious than theirs. I had
never seen anything quite like them at home: but it wasn't the luxury
that stirred in my heart a wondering love for America. I began to feel
it from the very moment when our cheap liner brought us into the
harbour, and the Statue of Liberty (about which Eagle had told me) was
suddenly unveiled to my eyes from behind a curtain of silver mist. The
thrill warmed my blood, and I had the sensation of being at home, as if
I were coming to stay with kinsfolk; a dim but deep conviction, that I
_belonged_; that there was a place for me.

We were doing something from morning till night--or rather till the next
morning; and the air was like a tonic to keep us up to the work of play.
Luncheons and dinners and dances were given for Di, and she was written
and talked about as the "Beautiful Lady Diana O'Malley"; but, though she
had proposals, nothing better offered than Captain March, whose rich
aunt, Mrs. Cabot, lived in New York, and proved to be the genuine
article. Consequently, we turned our attention to Washington. Washington
also turned its attention to us, and made itself agreeable to Father and
Diana. Place and people were both fascinating; and we had five weeks
more of dinners and dances, without the result we all knew in our secret
souls we had come to get. The men who wanted Di, she didn't want, and
vice versa. So at length we came to the last item marked on our
programme: a visit to the fashionable Alvarado Springs, close to Fort
Alvarado, in Arizona, where Captain March was stationed.

It was the end of March when we arrived at Alvarado, and the newspapers
were thickly sprinkled with the name of the Mexican President Huerta,
printed in big, black letters. A few weeks ago the name would have meant
nothing to me, but I hadn't lived in vain in Washington for more than a
month. If the name of a Mexican pres