or could she very well
ask it of any of these ladies. She looked them over as they sat there
talking and felt very lonely. And suddenly her eyes fell on her
grandmother. Frances Freeland was seated halfway down the long room in a
sandalwood chair, somewhat insulated by a surrounding sea of polished
floor. She sat with a smile on her lips, quite still, save for the
continual movement of her white hands on her black lap. To her gray hair
some lace of Chantilly was pinned with a little diamond brooch, and hung
behind her delicate but rather long ears. And from her shoulders was
depended a silvery garment, of stuff that looked like the mail shirt of a
fairy, reaching the ground on either side. A tacit agreement had
evidently been come to, that she was incapable of discussing 'the Land'
or those other subjects such as the French murder, the Russian opera, the
Chinese pictures, and the doings of one, L----, whose fate was just then
in the air, so that she sat alone.

And Nedda thought: 'How much more of a lady she looks than anybody here!
There's something deep in her to rest on that isn't in the Bigwigs;
perhaps it's because she's of a different generation.' And, getting up,
she went over and sat down beside her on a little chair.

Frances Freeland rose at once and said:

"Now, my darling, you can't be comfortable in that tiny chair. You must
take mine."

"Oh, no, Granny; please!"

"Oh, yes; but you must! It's so comfortable, and I've simply been
longing to sit in the chair you're in. Now, darling, to please me!"

Seeing that a prolonged struggle would follow if she did not get up,
Nedda rose and changed chairs.

"Do you like these week-ends, Granny?"

Frances Freeland seemed to draw her smile more resolutely across her
face. With her perfect articulation, in which there was, however, no
trace of bigwiggery, she answered:

"I think they're most interesting, darling. It's so nice to see new
people. Of course you don't get to know them, but it's very amusing to
watch, especially the head-dresses!" And sinking her voice: "Just look
at that one with the feather going straight up; did you ever see such a
guy?" and she cackled with a very gentle archness. Gazing at that almost
priceless feather, trying to reach God, Nedda felt suddenly how
completely she was in her grandmother's little camp; how entirely she
disliked bigwiggery.

Frances Freeland's voice brought her round.

"Do you know, darling, I've