their own sex, and talked investments; sometimes they spoke of their
diseases, or their hotels and steamers; and they took advice of each
other about places to go to if they went in this direction or that, but
said that, when it came to it they supposed they should go where their
wives decided. The ladies spoke of where they had met last, and of some
who had died since, or had got their daughters married; they professed
a generous envy of Mrs. Maybough for being so nicely settled, and said
that now they supposed she would always live in New York, unless, one
of them archly suggested, her daughter should be carried off somewhere;
if one had such a lovely daughter it was what one might expect to
happen, any day.

XIX.

The part that Charmian had chosen to represent must have been that of
an Egyptian slave. She served her mother's guests with the tea that
Cornelia poured, in attitudes of the eldest sculptures and mural
paintings, and received their thanks and compliments with the passive
impersonality of one whose hope in life had been taken away some time
in the reign of Thotmes II. She did not at once relent from her
self-sacrificial conception of herself, even under the flatteries of
the nice little fellow who had decorated the apartment for Mrs.
Maybough, and had come to drink a cup of tea in the environment of his
own taste. Perhaps this was because he had been one of the first to
note the peculiar type of Charmian's style and beauty, and she wished
to keep him in mind of it. He did duty as youth and gayety beside the
young ladies at their tea-urn, and when he learned that Cornelia was
studying at the Synthesis, he professed a vivid interest and a great
pleasure.

"I want Huntley to paint Miss Maybough," he said. "Don't you think he
would do it tremendously well, Miss Saunders?"

"Miss Saunders is going to paint me," said Charmian, mystically.

"As soon as I get to the round," said Cornelia to Charmian; she was
rather afraid to speak to the decorator. "I suppose you wouldn't want
to be painted with block hands."

The decorator laughed, and Charmian asked, "Isn't she nice not to say
anything about a block head? Very few Synthesis girls could have helped
it; it's one of the oldest Synthesis jokes."

The young man smiled sympathetically, and said he was sure they would
not keep Miss Saunders long at the block. "There's a friend of mine I
should like to bring here, some day."

"Mamma would be glad to s