h her arms thrown back, and clasped around the satin cushion crushed
against her head and shoulders, Miss Cutting lay on a red plush divan
in her father's picture gallery at home; and the swathing folds of a
topaz-hued surah gown embroidered with scarlet poppies half concealed
the feet that beat a tattoo on the polished oak floor.

"Then you have missed your marron glace?" answered Leo, turning from
the contemplation of a new picture which Mr. Cutting had recently added
to his collection.

"Of course. Do not all of us sooner or later? Where is yours? Safe
under lock and key, or hanging on some crag, ripening for the
confectioner; or filched by some stealthy white hand, devoured by some
eager lips that smile derisively at you while they nibble?"

From beneath drooping lids, Alma's oblique glance noted the result of
her Scipio Africanus' tactics.

"Alma, too intemperate and prolonged diet of sweets has ruined your
digestion; has rendered you an ethical dyspeptic. A surfeit of sugar
betrays itself in fermentation, and you have reached the stage of moral
acidulation."

"Ah, don't drift into homiletics! I see your marron grows hard by the
vineyard where sour grapes flourish. Leo, I am not so serenely proud as
you, but a trifle more honest, and I have cried for my bonbon, never
flouting its delicious flavor; hence, when I am ordered back to boiled
milk and oatmeal, I make no feint to disguise my wry faces."

Alma's low, teasing laugh stung like some persistent buzzing insect,
and a slight flush tinged her companion's cheek as she replied:

"Why plunge to the opposite extreme? You will starve on that porridge
you are desperately preparing for yourself."

"What else remains? This world is a huge bazaar, a big church fair, and
like other eager-eyed children I promptly set my heart on the great
'bisc' doll with its head turning coquettishly from side to side,
singing snatches from 'La Grande Duchcsse', and clad like Sheba's
queen! I stake all my pennies on a chance in the raffle, which has a
'consolation prize' hidden away from vulgar gaze. By and by the dice
rattle, and over my head, quite out of my reach, is borne the coveted
beauty (owned now by a girl I know), bowing and singing to the new
owner, who exultantly exhibits her as she departs; and into my
outstretched arms falls something hideous enough to play Medusa in a
tableau, a rag baby with grinning Senegambian lips, rayless owlish
eyes, and a concave nose whose n