illings will take the eats, Peter
will have a whole hamper of cocktails and things, and we go up to the
ridge for a sort of English nursery tea, I think."

"Doing it all ourselves?" Julia suggested, brightening.

"Well, practically. Although Greg's cook is going ahead with a couple of
maids in the Peters' car. They're going to broil trout or something;
anyway, I know Greg has been having fits about seeing that enough plates
go, and so on. I know Paula Billings is taking something frozen--"

"Oh, Lord, what a fuss and what a mess!" Julia said ungratefully.

"Well, you know how the Peters always do things. And then, after tea, if
this glorious weather holds, we'll send the maids and the hampers home,
and all go on down to Fernand's."

"Fernand's! Forty miles, Jim?"

"Oh, why not? If we're having a good time?"

"Well, I hope Peter Vane and Alan Gregory keep sober, that's all!" Julia
said. "The ride will be lovely, and it's a wonderful day. But Minna Vane
always bores me so!"

"Why, you little cat!" Jim laughed, catching her hand as it hung loose
over the arm of her chair.

"They've no brains," complained Julia seriously; "they were
born doing this sort of thing, they think they like it!
Buying--buying--buying--eating--dancing--rushing--rushing--rushing! It's
no life at all! I'd rather pack a heavy basket, and lug it over a hot
hill, and carry water half a mile, when I picnic, instead of rolling a
few miles in a motor car, and then sitting on a nice camp-chair, and
having a maid to pass me salads and ices and toast and broiled trout!"

"Well, if you would, I wouldn't!" Jim said good-naturedly.

"I wasn't born to this," Julia added thoughtfully; "my life has always
been full of real things; perhaps that's the trouble. I think of all the
things that aren't going right in the world, and I _can't_ just turn my
back on them, like a child--I get thinking of poor little clerks whose
wives have consumption--"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Jim protested frowningly, biting the end from
his cigar with a clip of firm white teeth.

"It isn't as if I had never been poor," Julia pursued uncertainly. "I
know that there are times when a new gown or a paid bill actually would
affect a girl's whole life! I think of those poor little girls at St.
Anne's--"

"I would like to suggest," Jim said incisively, "that the less you let
your mind run on those little girls from St. Anne's, the better for you!
If you have no consideration for