and--and--pulpy?"

"Heavens, no! If my husband has any private convictions regarding my
personal appearance, he is discreet enough to keep them to himself. If
he isn't satisfied with me, he should be. I have been working for years
to save myself from becoming fat and plump and--pulpy."

"Then you don't think fat women are beautiful?"

"My child, in all enlightened countries adipose is woman's worst enemy.
If I were a fat woman, and a man said that he loved me, I should know
that he was after my bank-account. Take my advice, my dear young lady,
and bant."

"Bant?"

"Reduce. Make yourself slender. You have beautiful eyes, beautiful hair,
a perfect complexion, and with a trim figure you would be simply
incomparable."

Kalora listened, trembling with surprise and pleasure. Then she leaned
over and took the hand of the gracious Englishwoman.

"I have a confession to make," she said in a whisper. "I am not fat--I
am slim--quite slim."

And then, at that moment, something happened to make this whole story
worth telling. It was a little something, but it was the beginning of
many strange experiences, for it broke up the wonderful garden-party in
the grounds of the Governor-General, and it gave Morovenia something to
talk about for many weeks to come. It all came about as follows:

At the military club, the night before the party, a full score of young
men, representing the quality, sat at an oblong table and partook of
refreshments not sanctioned by the Prophet. They were young men of
registered birth and supposititious breeding, even though most of them
had very little head back of the ears and wore the hair clipped short
and were big of bone, like work-horses, and had the gusty manners of the
camp.

They were foolishly gloating over the prospect of meeting the two
daughters of the Governor-General, and were telling what they knew about
them with much freedom, for, even in a monarchy, the chief executive and
his family are public property and subject to the censorship of any one
who has a voice for talking.

Of these male gossips there were a few who said, with gleeful certainty,
that the elder daughter was a mere twig who could hide within the shadow
of her bounteous and incomparable sister.

"Wait until to-morrow and you shall see," they said, wagging their heads
very wisely.

To-morrow had come and with it the party and here was Kalora--a pretty
face peering out from a great pod of clothes.

They stood