he intimate problems of the most
wonderful social organism the world has ever seen, and was confronted with
stupendous works of nature and illimitable solitudes wherein the soul
stands appalled. She also ate a great quantity of peaches. When her visit
to the Callenders had come to an end she armed herself with introductions
and started off by herself to see America. She traveled across the
Continent, beheld the majesty of Niagara and the bewildering life of New
York. She went to Washington and Boston. In fact, she learned many things
about a great country which were very good for her to know, receiving
impressions with the alertness of a sympathetic intellect, and pigeonholing
them with feminine conscientiousness for future reference.

It was all very pleasant, healthful, and instructive, but it no more helped
her in her quest than gazing at the jewelers' windows in the Rue de la
Paix. Snow-capped Sierras and crowded tram-cars were equally unsuggestive
of a mission in life. In the rare moments which activity allowed her for
depression she began to wonder whether she was not chasing the phantom of a
wild goose. A damsel to whom in a moment of expansion she revealed the
object of her journeying exclaimed: "What other mission in life has a woman
than to spend money and look beautiful?"

Zora laughed incredulously.

"You've accomplished half already, for you do look beautiful," said the
damsel. "The other half is easy."

"But if you haven't much money to spend?"

"Spend somebody else's. Lord! If I had your beauty I'd just walk down Wall
Street and pick up a millionaire between my finger and thumb, and carry him
off right away."

When Zora suggested that life perhaps might have some deeper significance,
the maiden answered:

"Life is like the school child's idea of a parable--a heavenly story (if
you've lots of money) with no earthly meaning."

"Don't you ever go down beneath the surface of things?" asked Zora.

"If you dig down far enough into the earth," replied the damsel, "you come
to water. If you bore down deep enough into life you come to tears. My
dear, I'm going to dance on the surface and have a good time as long as I
can. And I guess you're doing the same."

"I suppose I am," said Zora. And she felt ashamed of herself.

At Washington fate gave her an opportunity of attaining the other half of
the damsel's idea. An elderly senator of enormous wealth proposed marriage,
and offered her half a dozen motor-