packing! And now"--Miss Toland rubbed her nose with the gesture Julia
knew so well--"now Miss Pierce is temporarily in charge, but she won't
stay there nights, so the clubs are given up," she observed
discontentedly.

"And what's the news from Sally?" Julia pursued.

"Just the loveliest in the world," Mrs. Toland said. "Keith is working
like a little Trojan; and Sally sent us a perfectly charming description
of the pension, and their walks--"

"Yes, and how she couldn't go out because she hadn't shoes," Jane added,
half in malice, half in fun. "_Don't_ look so shocked, Mother dear, you
know it's true. And the landlady cheating them out of a whole week's
board--"

"Gracious me!" said Mrs. Toland, in a low undertone full of annoyance.
"Did any one ever hear such nonsense! All that is past history now,
Janey," she reminded her young daughter, in her usual hopeful voice.
"Dad sent a cheque, like the dear, helpful daddy he is, and now
everything's lovely again!"

Julia did not ask for Ted until she saw Barbara alone for a moment the
next day. It was about ten o'clock on a matchless autumn morning, and
Julia, stepping from her bedroom's French window to the wide sunny porch
that ran the width of the house, saw Barbara some forty feet away
sitting just outside her own window, with a mass of hair spread to the
sun.

Julia joined her, dragged out a low, light chair from Barbara's room,
and settled herself for a gossip.

"Had breakfast?" Barbara smiled. "Jim downstairs?"

"Oh, hours ago!" Julia said to the first question, and to the second,
with the young wife's conscious blush, "Jim's dressing. He's the most
impossible person to get started in the morning!"

Barbara did not blush but she felt a little tug at her heart.

"Come," she said, "I thought Jim had no faults?"

"Well, he hasn't," Julia laughed. And then, a little confused by her own
fervent tone, she changed the subject, and asked about Ted.

"Why, Ted's happy, and rich, and simply adored by Bob Carleton," Barbara
summarized briefly, in a rather dry voice, "but Mother and Dad never
will get over it, and I suppose Ted herself doesn't like the idea of
that other wife--she lives at The Palace, and she's got a seven-year-old
girl! It's _done_, you know, Julie, and of course Ted's accepted
everywhere; she'll go to the Brownings' this year, and Mrs. Morton has
asked her to receive with her at some sort of dinner reception next
month, you'll meet her everywhere.