found it more
satisfactory to get it by reading. Now wasn't that snobby, Dick?"

"Is it snobbish to choose what really suits you, instead of following a
craze like a sheep woman?"

But Lena shut her lips tightly. If she had not will, she had obstinacy.
She could be resolute in behalf of her realities, luxury, beauty and
self. From the moment when Mrs. Appleton first dawned on her horizon,
she had recognized her ideal. Here was a woman who was at once showy,
fashionable and virtuous. The things that Mrs. Lenox took for granted or
ignored were to her matters of absorbing importance. She magnified the
office of every detail of social conduct and every minutia of society's
"functions". It was worth while to spend a week of soul-fatiguing labor
in order that a tea should be just right; and her preparations were not
made in silence, but with an amount of discussion and red-tape that
filled every crevice of life. She had learned the art of so cramming the
days with trifles that there was no room for the big things and she
could conveniently forget them.

Mrs. Appleton seemed to recognize in Lena the same curious mingling of
deep-down barbaric egotism and love of display, with the longing to be
civilizedly correct. The two were drawn together.

"I like her," said Lena positively.

"I'm sorry," Dick said gently. "I can't say that I do, and I should be
glad if you could find your friends among those I love and respect."

"You needn't try to dictate my friendships," said Lena sharply.

"I did not think of dictating, sweetheart. But when we love each other,
we naturally long for sympathy in all things." Dick was making a brave
effort.

But there was little use in making this appeal to Lena, to whom love was
but a beneficent masculine idiosyncrasy. Dick glanced at her and at his
watch.

"I must be off," he said. "I have an engagement to meet Preston and
plan out our campaign."

"Ours!"

"I'm going to run for alderman of this ward," Dick laughed as Lena
flushed. "Don't you approve?"

"How can you be interested in running for alderman?" she asked. "It is
such a mean little ambition. I wish you would try for something big. It
would be grand to have you a senator, so that we could go to Washington.
I should love to be in all the gaieties and meet all the distinguished
people."

"Why, sweetheart, you don't suppose I care for the great name of city
father, do you?" Dick answered laughing. "That's only the end of a
lever.