rest, I was meant to be happy,"
that lady continued, as if the possession of so unusual a characteristic
singled her out for special privileges.

Susy, with a certain sharpness, responded that she had always supposed
we all were.

"Oh, no, dearest: not governesses and mothers-in-law and companions, and
that sort of people. They wouldn't know how if they tried. But you and
I, darling--"

"Oh, I don't consider myself in any way exceptional," Susy intervened.
She longed to add: "Not in your way, at any rate--" but a few minutes
earlier Mrs. Vanderlyn had told her that the palace was at her disposal
for the rest of the summer, and that she herself was only going to perch
there--if they'd let her!--long enough to gather up her things and
start for St. Moritz. The memory of this announcement had the effect of
curbing Susy's irony, and of making her shift the conversation to the
safer if scarcely less absorbing topic of the number of day and evening
dresses required for a season at St. Moritz.

As she listened to Mrs. Vanderlyn--no less eloquent on this theme
than on the other--Susy began to measure the gulf between her past and
present. "This is the life I used to lead; these are the things I used
to live for," she thought, as she stood before the outspread glories of
Mrs. Vanderlyn's wardrobe. Not that she did not still care: she could
not look at Ellie's laces and silks and furs without picturing herself
in them, and wondering by what new miracle of management she could give
herself the air of being dressed by the same consummate artists. But
these had become minor interests: the past few months had given her a
new perspective, and the thing that most puzzled and disconcerted her
about Ellie was the fact that love and finery and bridge and dining-out
were seemingly all on the same plane to her.

The inspection of the dresses lasted a long time, and was marked by
many fluctuations of mood on the part of Mrs. Vanderlyn, who passed
from comparative hopefulness to despair at the total inadequacy of her
wardrobe. It wouldn't do to go to St. Moritz looking like a frump, and
yet there was no time to get anything sent from Paris, and, whatever she
did, she wasn't going to show herself in any dowdy re-arrangements done
at home. But suddenly light broke on her, and she clasped her hands
for joy. "Why, Nelson'll bring them--I'd forgotten all about Nelson!
There'll be just time if I wire to him at once."

"Is Nelson going to joi