solution to have her parents visit her at Saserkopee. Perhaps she
wished to show them in what state she now lived; or it may conceivably
be that, in her refined and determined manner, she was fond of her
parents. She kissed them repeatedly and was gone with much waving of a
handkerchief and yelps of "Now don't forget--you're you're to visit
me--be sure and write--Harry, don't stick your head out of the window,
d'yuhhearme?"

* * * * *

Lulu's visit had two effects upon the lives of Father and Mother. They
found that their quiet love had grown many-fold stronger, sweeter, in
the two weeks it had been denied the silly fondnesses of utterance. They
could laugh, now that there was no critic of their shy brand of humor.
Father stopped on the step and winked an immense shameless wink at
Mother, and she sighed and said, with unexpected understanding, "Yes,
I'm afraid Lulu is a little--just a leet-le bit--"

"And I reckon we won't be in such a gosh-awful hustle to visit her."

Mother was so vulgar as to grunt, "Well, I guess not!"

That evening they sat in the rose-arbor again. And had tone poems on the
mouth-organ. And dreamed that something would happen to make their
investment pay.

Another result there was of Lulu's visit. Father couldn't help
remembering her suggestion that they ought to bag a social or artistic
lion as an attraction for "The T Room." He was delighted to find that,
after weeks of vacuous worry, he had another idea.

Now that August, the height of the season, had come, he would capture
Mrs. Vance Carter herself.

Mrs. Vance Carter was the widow of the Boothbay Textile Mills millions.
She was a Winslow on her father's side, a Cabot on her mother's, and
Beacon Street was officially swept from end to end and tidied with
little pink feather dusters whenever she returned to Boston. She was so
solid that society reporters didn't dare write little items about her,
and when she was in Charleston she was invited to the Saint Cecilia
Ball. Also she was rather ignorant, rather unhappy, and completely
aimless. She and her daughter spent their summers three miles from
Grimsby Head, in an estate with a gate-house and a conservatory and a
golf course and a house with three towers and other architecture. When
America becomes a military autocracy she will be Lady Carter or the
Countess of Grimsby.

The Applebys saw her go by every day, in a landaulet with liveried
chauffeur and foot