ly such pretty ones, I suppose?" Darrow made no comment, and
she continued: "And Mrs. Murrett's own opinion--if she'd offered you
one--probably wouldn't have been of much value?"

"Only in so far as her disapproval would, on general principles, have
been a good mark for Miss Viner. But surely," he went on after a pause,
"you could have found out about her from the people through whom you
first heard of her?"

Anna smiled. "Oh, we heard of her through Adelaide Painter--;" and in
reply to his glance of interrogation she explained that the lady in
question was a spinster of South Braintree, Massachusetts, who, having
come to Paris some thirty years earlier, to nurse a brother through an
illness, had ever since protestingly and provisionally camped there in a
state of contemptuous protestation oddly manifested by her never taking
the slip-covers off her drawing-room chairs. Her long residence on
Gallic soil had not mitigated her hostility toward the creed and customs
of the race, but though she always referred to the Catholic Church as
the Scarlet Woman and took the darkest views of French private
life, Madame de Chantelle placed great reliance on her judgment and
experience, and in every domestic crisis the irreducible Adelaide was
immediately summoned to Givre.

"It's all the odder because my mother-in-law, since her second marriage,
has lived so much in the country that she's practically lost sight
of all her other American friends. Besides which, you can see how
completely she has identified herself with Monsieur de Chantelle's
nationality and adopted French habits and prejudices. Yet when anything
goes wrong she always sends for Adelaide Painter, who's more American
than the Stars and Stripes, and might have left South Braintree
yesterday, if she hadn't, rather, brought it over with her in her
trunk."

Darrow laughed. "Well, then, if South Braintree vouches for Miss
Viner----"

"Oh, but only indirectly. When we had that odious adventure with
Mademoiselle Grumeau, who'd been so highly recommended by Monsieur de
Chantelle's aunt, the Chanoinesse, Adelaide was of course sent for, and
she said at once: 'I'm not the least bit surprised. I've always told you
that what you wanted for Effie was a sweet American girl, and not one of
these nasty foreigners.' Unluckily she couldn't, at the moment, put her
hand on a sweet American; but she presently heard of Miss Viner through
the Farlows, an excellent couple who live in the