oy; and they have made
money, and Oscar has a nice plantation near them, and is married to a
sweet little Southern girl, and his mother adores the baby; and Ned
goes to college, and Mr. Marsh is a prosperous builder, high in the
Scottish Rite, and growing used to his dress coat--"

"But," said the hostess, "you are having them all south; they went to
Dakota."

"Why, so they did! I forgot," cried the Southerner. "Maybe it was a
mistake; and anyhow, they would have done better to go south!"

Everybody laughed and Mrs. Curtis' fine eyes lit up. "I perceive you are
a psychic, Mrs. Atherton," she said gaily. "And they _did_ go south.
Being a psychic, can't you tell me something? Why didn't Nannie answer
my letters?"

The Southerner dropped her chin and looked upward in the pose of a seer;
no one noticed Mrs. Clymer's sudden movement or the ripple of quick
emotion in Mrs. Curtis' face. "That's easy," she responded. "I see a
slim girl with dark hair walking with another girl who answers to the
name of Elsa. The dark-haired girl gives her a letter, stamped, but not
addressed. She has sent a letter to her friend, which has not reached
her. Letters sometimes do not reach people who are hurrying through
Egypt or--or other places. This letter she gives to Elsa, who is to
marry the cousin of an acquaintance of the friend. She is to post
it--_voila tout!_"

"She _was_ engaged to Bertha Miller's cousin; and she did try awfully
hard to be intimate with Constance," whispered Mrs. Clymer in the
hostess' ear; while everybody laughed again.

"He drinks like a fish," returned the hostess irrelevantly.

"Oh, Mrs. Atherton, don't stop, tell us more," begged the youngest
member. "I feel so interested in Nannie. Has she any children?" The
youngest member had just acquired the most remarkable baby in the world.

"I reckon," jested the Southerner, "two or three. Two boys, let us
say--"

"How nice!" cried Mrs. Curtis, coloring prettily. "_I_ have two boys."

"And--I think a little girl, whom she has named Constance, Constance
Ridgely--Are we going, Mrs. Clymer?"

Mrs. Clymer laid a kindly hand on her shoulder, saying, "Yes, my dear, I
must go; but as I am stopping on my way, I shall walk; and Constance
will take care of you."

"Thank you, Aunt Kate," said Mrs. Curtis, so low the others--except the
Southerner--did not hear. They were alone in the carriage before she
made any sign of that which had stirred her profoundly. Then she tur