ainty; and I had expected to be
superior there, I fancy. But it wasn't that; it was my feeling that she
was finer and stronger than my other friends. You know the pretty
clothes, the pretty manners, are only signs of the real thing; and
Nannie had the real thing, I was sure. But there was always that
constraint about her. You would not believe," said Mrs. Curtis gently to
the Southerner, "you would not believe how absurdly this intangible
reserve of hers hurt me."

"I think it was very nasty of her, myself," laughed the Southerner; "but
did it never occur to you that some other friend of yours might have
been making mischief? You were a very desirable chum, some one might
have filled your friend's head with notions of how different were your
classes and walks in life; and how you were too loyal and kind hearted
to desert or repel an old friend, but you might find such ties a drag on
you. If that happened she would be a little morbid about making
advances. She was probably proud in her own way."

"There was Elsa Clarke," Mrs. Clymer suggested; "she was always trying
to be intimate with you; and if ever there was a sly little climber, it
was she."

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed the hostess. "I am beginning to reminisce,
myself. Wasn't there a boy in the Marsh family, Nannie Marsh's brother
or cousin? Yes, her cousin, Oscar. Why, to be sure. He came back from
college and was a clerk in Norris Blanchard's store, and fell madly in
love with Gladys Blanchard. She treated him abominably, they did say.
Led him on, and then married that young man from Massachusetts; and
Oscar shot himself in the front yard while they were standing up under
the floral bell."

"How ghastly," murmured the youngest member, "to kill himself--"

"Oh, it didn't kill him, though they thought he would die. I don't know
but his uncle wondered sometimes if it wouldn't have been better. For
after he got up he took to drink and notions--wild, anarchistic,
socialistic--"

"He couldn't take to them both at the same time," Mrs. Waite interrupted
with fervor. "They are absolutely antagonistic, socialism--"

"Yes, yes, to be sure"--the hostess hastily turned a conversational
switch before the collision--"of course I didn't mean to say he believed
in _both_, only that he took to making fierce speeches at the populist
meetings, and wrote articles for the papers, girding at the rich. And he
used to get drunk. The poor Marshes felt awfully. I shouldn't be a bit