tionship between them is all
over now. She was an extraordinary person too! Would you believe it,
she cut her hair short, and used to go about in men's boots in bad
weather!

Mrs. Holt: And when her step-brother, the black sheep, had gone away,
and the whole town naturally was talking about him--what do you think
she did? She went out to America to him!

Mr. Rummel: Yes, but remember the scandal she caused before she went,
Mrs. Holt.

Mrs. Holt: Hush, don't speak of it.

Mrs. Lynge: My goodness, did she create a scandal too?

Mrs. Rummel: I think you ought to hear it, Mrs. Lynge. Mr. Bernick had
just got engaged to Betty Tonnesen, and the two of them went arm in arm
into her aunt's room to tell her the news--

Mrs. Holt: The Tonnesens' parents were dead, you know--

Mrs. Rummel: When, suddenly, up got Lona Hessel from her chair and
gave our refined and well-bred Karsten Bernick such a box on the ear
that his head swam.

Mrs. Lynge: Well, I am sure I never--

Mrs. Holt: It is absolutely true.

Mrs. Rummel: And then she packed her box and went away to America.

Mrs. Lynge: I suppose she had had her eye on him for herself.

Mrs. Rummel: Of course she had. She imagined that he and she would
make a match of it when he came back from Paris.

Mrs. Holt: The idea of her thinking such a thing! Karsten Bernick--a
man of the world and the pink of courtesy, a perfect gentleman, the
darling of all the ladies...

Mrs. Rummel: And, with it all, such an excellent young man, Mrs.
Holt--so moral.

Mrs. Lynge: But what has this Miss Hessel made of herself in America?

Mrs. Rummel: Well, you see, over that (as my husband once put it) has
been drawn a veil which one should hesitate to lift.

Mrs. Lynge: What do you mean?

Mrs. Rummel: She no longer has any connection with the family, as you
may suppose; but this much the whole town knows, that she has sung for
money in drinking saloons over there--

Mrs. Holt: And has given lectures in public--

Mrs. Rummel: And has published some mad kind of book.

Mrs. Lynge: You don't say so!

Mrs. Rummel: Yes, it is true enough that Lona Hessel is one of the
spots on the sun of the Bernick family's good fortune. Well, now you
know the whole story, Mrs. Lynge. I am sure I would never have spoken
about it except to put you on your guard.

Mrs. Lynge: Oh, you may be sure I shall be most careful. But that poor
child Dina Dorf! I am truly sorry for her.

Mrs.