were just speaking of you--Mr. Plaisdell was!" said
Charmian, with the injury still in her voice.

"I didn't hear you speak of him," Cornelia said, with a vague flutter
of her hands toward the teacups.

The action seemed to justify Wetmore to himself in saying, "Yes, thank
you, I _will_ have some tea, Miss Saunders, and then I'll get some one
to introduce me to you. You haven't seen _me_ before, and I can't stand
these airs of Ludlow's." He made them laugh, and Charmian introduced
them, and Cornelia gave him his tea; then Charmian returned to her
grievance and complained to Cornelia: "I thought you didn't know
anybody in New York."

"Well, it seems you were not far wrong," Wetmore interposed. "I don't
call Ludlow much of anybody."

"You don't often come down to anything as crude as that, Wetmore,"
Ludlow said.

"Not if I can help it. But I was driven to it, this time; the
provocation was great."

"I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Saunders at home, several years
ago," Ludlow said in obedience to Charmian. "We had some very
delightful friends in common, there--old friends of mine--at
Pymantoning."

"What a pretty name," said Mr. Plaisdell. "What a pity that none of our
great cities happen to have those musical Indian names."

"Chicago," Wetmore suggested.

"Yes, Chicago is big, and the name is Indian; but is it pretty?"

"You can't have everything. I don't suppose it is very decorative."

"Pymantoning is as pretty as its name," said Ludlow. "It has the
loveliness of a level, to begin with; we're so besotted with mountains
in the East that we don't know how lovely a level is."

"The sea," Wetmore suggested again.

"Well, yes, that's occasionally level," Ludlow admitted. "But it hasn't
got white houses with green blinds behind black ranks of maples in the
moonlight."

"If 'good taste' could have had its way, the white house with green
blinds would have been a thing of the past." said the decorator. "And
they were a genuine instinct, an inspiration, with our people. The
white paint is always beautiful,--as marble is. People tried to replace
it with mud-color--the color of the ground the house was built on! I
congratulate Miss Saunders on the conservatism of Py--?"

"Pymantoning," said Cornelia, eager to contribute something to the
talk, and then vexed to have it made much of by Mr. Plaisdell.

Wetmore was looking away. He floated lightly off, with the buoyancy
which is sometimes the property of people