ul truths, my Susie,
but they're for your good and guidance. I know that long-legged,
yellow-haired laddie out in New Zealand is a demi-god. Of course he
is--they all are--but it's best not to marry 'em--if one can help it!

But the dinner. I was dreadfully puzzled what to wear--whether to get
myself up as a severe matron, or appear in the costume suited to me--a
frivolous woman, _jeune encore_, and with a mind not above
millinery--when a little note from Mrs. Malise, felicitating herself
and me that the day of our dinner was also their reception evening,
turned the scale against the brown silk in favor of a quite celestial
palest green-blue Irish poplin I got in Dublin this last visit. The
tint suits my pale dark face admirably, and with rather a profusion of
white lace, and pink coral ornaments that Ronayne's brother Gus, the
major, just home from India, gave me at Christmas--exquisite swinging
fuchsias, with golden stamens and leaves--the toilette was so effective
that I was quite ready to hear Ronayne's, "Oh, what a gorgeous swell!"
when I exhibited myself just before starting. And, "Ould Ireland for
ever!" as his eye fell on the gown he helped me to choose. "And are
these the laces my father gave you?" taking hold of one of my frills.
"Do they look like antimacassars? Because if they don't, they never
were fabricated in your tight little island, my Paddy. I'd do a deal
for you. You couldn't help being born there, poor boy; _mais toute
chose a son terme_, and even my devotion won't stretch to the
wearing Irish lace."

Our host and hostess received us in the confederate drawing-room, where
were three or four other guests already, and the greater number of the
associate household and the lacking members presented themselves before
dinner was announced. Fourteen or fifteen people in all, and not, to the
casual glance, differing strikingly from unassociate dwellers in
"isolate homes and dreary lodgings."

There were, first, a brusque-mannered but uncommonly handsome Lady ----
----. If there's a lord, or plain mister ---- ----, I don't know, but
certainly he's not _en evidence_. Lady ---- ---- is an authoress on the
woman question and on marriage, and is generally given to the most
forward of "advanced" opinions and ideas. Ronayne insultingly says they
won't harm me, for I should never get a notion of what they really
are--a speech which I treated with the oblivious contempt it deserved,
though inwardly tickled at the