y Nottingham gave a long, appreciative sigh.

"I think it is _the_ nicest story," she said--"and it's all true.
Oh, Jeannie, I am such a match-maker, and it is so pleasant to be
forestalled. I asked him down to Bray simply in order to promote
this, and now I find it has been promoted already. But the punt
will be useful all the same."

Jeannie joined her friend in the window-seat.

"Yes, just the same," she said.

CHAPTER VII.

There was silence for a little while. An hour had passed since they
began to talk, but it was still short of midnight, and the hansoms and
motors still swept about the square like a throng of sonorous fireflies.
Just opposite a big house flared with lit windows, and the sound of the
band came loudly across the open space, a little mellowed by the
distance, but with the rhythm of its music intact.

"Oh, I could get into a ball-dress and go and dance now for lightness
of heart," said Jeannie. "But I won't; I will do something much nicer,
and that is I will hear from you the news of your year. Now it is 'you
next.' Tell me all you have done and been and thought of. And then I
shall want to know all about Gladys and all about Daisy. I talked to
Daisy--or, rather, she talked to me--for half an hour this afternoon,
but I don't think she got absolutely 'home' in her talk. I had the
impression that she was showing me the dining-room and drawing-room,
so to speak. She did not sit with me in my bedroom or in hers as we
are sitting now. The only talk worth calling a talk is when you put
your feet on the fender and tuck up your skirt and put the lights
out--figuratively, that is. One must be taken into privacy. Daisy
wasn't very private. You have got to be. Now, dear Alice, about
yourself first."

Alice sighed again--not appreciatively this time.

"There's very little to say. I am rather lazier than I was, and Daisy
and Gladys--Daisy chiefly--make all arrangements. I send them out to
dances alone, because they always find a chaperon of some kind; and you
know, Jeannie, I don't like hot rooms and supper. I weave plenty of
plans still, and they mostly come off, but I don't go to superintend the
execution of them. I don't think I have any very private life; if I had
you should at once be admitted. I think a great deal about the people I
like best. I try occasionally to straighten out their affairs for them.
I want all girls to marry suitable men, and all men to marry suitable
girls. I think, i