rled, who had too evidently gone over to the
younger generation. "Your sister, too--and her friends? Will you go and
see if they have come, and if they have, bring them here--or plead my
cause eloquently, or something?"

"I'll go at once," I agreed, rising. On principle, I disliked and
despised the gorgeous, selfish creature; but there was that in me which
longed to please her, and delighted in being chosen as her defender,
over the head of Somerled, so to speak. I was not sorry to escape from
the scene which Barrie's pale face and o'er-bright eyes made very
trying; also I was really anxious to find out if Aline had come. If she
had not, I should begin to worry about her and the poor old car--to say
nothing of the tribe of Vanneck.

As I went out, I heard Mrs. Bal exclaim, "Oh, by the way, if she's to be
my sister, she can't be a MacDonald, She'll have to take the name of
Ballantree. It was my maiden name, you know."

A disagreeable surprise awaited me outside. I learned that, while we'd
been out after luncheon, my sister and the Vannecks had come, but that
Aline had had a mishap. She'd been wearing a motor-mask veil, according
to her custom, in order to protect her complexion. The talc front over
her face had been damaged in the morning's storm, and somehow her eyes
were injured. I should have received the news sooner had I gone to the
desk instead of following Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald upstairs.

Off I hurried to Aline's room, where I found Mrs. Vanneck with my
sister, and an oculist whom George had hurried out to fetch. The poor
girl was suffering, and a good deal frightened, though we tried to
console her. As she went to the window to be examined by the specialist,
I could see that her face and hair and lilac silk blouse were covered
with a powder of talc, which sparkled like diamond dust. Her eyes and
lids were full of the stuff, it proved, and she cried with nervousness
and pain as the oculist proceeded to get it all out.

It was impossible to speak to her of Barrie and Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald, but I told Maud Vanneck, who, though mildly horrified,
promised for herself and her brothers that the secret should not be
revealed.

When I returned to Mrs. Bal's sitting-room, I found Somerled and Mrs.
James gone. Barrie was alone with her newly found--sister, and a more
forlorn little figure than our young goddess it would be hard to
imagine. Andromeda chained to her rock could not have looked more
dismally dese