children
or friends;--and told Margaret that she only used her coat of arms on
house linen, stationery, and livery, because her husband and mother
liked it. "It's of course rather nice to realize that one comes from
one of the oldest of the Colonial families," she would say. "The
Carterets of Maryland, you know.--But it's all such bosh!"

And she urged Margaret to claim her own right to family honors:
"You're a Quincy, my dear! Don't let that woman intimidate you,--she
didn't remember that her grandfather was a captain until her husband
made his money. And where the family portraits came from I don't know,
but I think there's a man on Fourth Avenue who does 'em!" she would
say, or, "I know all about Lilly Reynolds, Peggy. Her father was as
rich as she says, and I daresay the crest is theirs. But ask her what
her maternal grandmother did for a living, if you want to shut her
up!" Other people she would condemn with a mere whispered "Coal!" or
"Patent bath-tubs!" behind her fan, and it pleased her to tell people
that her treasure of a secretary had the finest blood in the world in
her veins. Margaret was much admired, and Margaret was her discovery,
and she liked to emphasize her find.

Mrs. Carr-Boldt's mother, a tremulous, pompous old lady, unwittingly
aided the impression by taking an immense fancy to Margaret, and by
telling her few intimates and the older women among her daughter's
friends that the girl was a perfect little thoroughbred. When the
Carr-Boldts filled their house with the reckless and noisy company
they occasionally affected, Mrs. Carteret would say majestically to
Margaret:--

"You and I have nothing in common with this riff-raff, my dear!"

Summer came, and Margaret headed a happy letter "Bar Harbor." Two
months later all Weston knew that Margaret Paget was going abroad for
a year with those rich people, and had written her mother from the
Lusitania. Letters from London, from Germany, from Holland, from
Russia, followed. "We are going to put the girls at school in
Switzerland, and (ahem!) winter on the Riviera, and then Rome for Holy
Week!" she wrote.

She was presently home again, chattering French and German to amuse
her father, teaching Becky a little Italian song to match her little
Italian costume.

"It's wonderful to me how you get along with all these rich people,
Mark," said her mother, admiringly, during Margaret's home visit. Mrs.
Paget was watering the dejected-looking side garden w