iss Fancy was permitted
nothing but coffee.

"Do not forget your throat, my dear," Mr. Softly Bishop authoritatively
interjected into Miss Fancy's circumstantial recital of the
expensiveness of the bouquets which had been hurled at her in the New
National Theatre at Washington.

"And by the way," (looking at his watch), "do not forget the appointment
with the elocutionist."

"But aren't you coming with me?" demanded Miss Fancy alarmed. Already
she was learning the habit of helplessness--so attractive to men and so
useful to them.

These remarks broke up the luncheon party, which all the guests assured
the deprecating host had been perfectly delightful, with the implied
addition that it had also constituted the crown and summit of their
careers. Eve and Sissie were prodigious in superlatives to such an
extent that Mr. Prohack began to fear for Mr. Softly Bishop's capacity
to assimilate the cruder forms of flattery. His fear, however, was
unnecessary. When the host and his beloved departed Miss Fancy was still
recounting tit-bits of her biography.

"But I'll tell you the rest another time," she cried from the moving
car.

She had emphatically won the second battle. From the first blow she had
never even looked like losing. And she had shown no mercy, quite
properly following the maxim that war is war. Eve and Sissie seemed to
rise with difficulty to their knees, after the ruthless adversary, tired
of standing on their prostrate form, had scornfully walked away.

III

"Well!" sighed Mrs. Prohack, with the maximum of expressiveness,
glancing at her daughter as one woman of the world at another. They were
lingering, as it were convalescent after the severe attack and defeat,
in the foyer of the hotel.

"Well!" sighed Sissie, flattered by the glance, and firmly taking her
place in the fabric of society. "Well, father, we always knew you had
some queer friends, but really these were the limit! And the
extravagance of the thing! That luncheon must have cost at least twenty
pounds,--and I do believe he had special flowers, too. When I think of
the waste of money and time that goes on daily in places like these, I
wonder there's any England left. It ought to be stopped by law."

"My child," said Mr. Prohack. "I observe with approbation that you are
beginning to sit up and take notice. Centuries already divide you from
the innocent creature who used to devote her days and nights to the
teaching of dancing to pe