ts.

"What should we have done if anything hadn't been?" asked Asenath,
in return. "Everything always has been, somehow, in my life. I don't
believe we have anything to do with the 'ifs' way back, do you, Miss
Hapsie? We couldn't stop short of the 'if' out of which we came into
the world,--or the world came out of darkness! I think that's the
very beauty of living."

"The very everlasting livingness," said Miss Hapsie. "We don't want
to see the strings by which the earths and moons are hung up; nor,
any more, the threads that hold our little daily possibilities."

Asenath had other visitors, sometimes, with whom it was not so easy
to strike the key-note of things.

Glossy Megilp and her mother had come home from Europe. They and the
Ledwiths were in apartments in one of the great "Babulous" hotels,
as Sin called them, with a mingling of idea and etymology.

"Good places enough," she said, "for the prologue and the epilogue
of life; but not for the blessed meanwhile; for the acting of all
the dear heart and home parts."

The two families had managed very well by taking two small "suites"
and making a common parlor; thus bestowing themselves in one room
less than they could possibly have done apart. They were very
comfortable and content, made economical breakfasts and teas
together, dined at the cafe, and had long forenoons in which to run
about and look in upon their friends.

Glossy had always "cultivated" Asenath Scherman for though that
young dame lived at present a very retired and domestic life, Miss
Megilp was quite aware that she _might_ come out, and in precisely
the right place, at any minute she chose; and meanwhile it was
exceedingly suitable to know her well in this same intimate
privilege of domesticity.

Glossy Megilp was very polite; but she did not believe in the new
order of things; and her eyelids and the corners of her mouth showed
it. Mrs. Megilp admired; thought it lovely for Asenath _just now_;
but of course not a thing to count upon, or to expect generally. In
short, they treated it all as a whim; a coincidence of whims.
Asenath, although she would not trouble herself about the "ifs away
back," had a spirit of looking forward which impelled her to argue
against and clear away prospective ones.

"Bad things have lasted long enough," she said; "I don't see why the
good ones should not, when once they have begun."

"They won't begin; one swallow never makes a summer. This has
happened t