ed, her face beaming with animation, her
eyes sparkling with intelligence, Kenneth's sister-in-law was a pretty,
wholesome looking girl. She had beautiful blond hair like her sister,
and fine, white teeth that told of good health and perfect digestion.
Helen's junior only by three years, she was still unmarried and for the
present at least seemed more inclined to remain single and partake of
life's pleasures than incur the risks and responsibilities of
matrimony. Not that she had been without offers. A girl as attractive
and clever could hardly have failed to please the sterner sex. All
sorts and conditions of men had prostrated themselves at her tiny,
well-shod feet, but, capricious and headstrong, she would have none of
them. She was what might be called a singular girl. She liked men,
not because of their sex, but because their point of view was
different, their grasp of things stronger than her own. One day she
must marry. She knew that. It was, she insisted laughingly, an
ignoble state of slavery, a humiliating, degrading condition of
subjection to the male which every woman must endure, necessary
perhaps, but an ordeal to be put off, something unpleasant to be
postponed as long as possible, like the taking of a dose of unsavory
physic or having a tooth pulled at the dentist's. Meantime, heart
whole and fancy free, she enjoyed life to the limit and kept her
admirers guessing.

"Oh, I saw such lovely things in the stores," exclaimed the young girl.
"I wish I had the money to buy them all."

"You will have when I get back from South Africa," he laughed.

"Don't forget," she laughed. "I'll hold you to that promise. Helen is
witness."

"I swear it!" he said with mock solemnity. "You shall have carte
blanche in any Fifth Avenue shop to the amount of--$1.75."

"Will you be ready in time?" she laughed, looking around with dismay at
the litter of open trunks.

"I won't, if you stay here chattering like a magpie."

"What time does the steamer sail?"

"Eleven o'clock," said Helen.

"We're all coming to see you off. Mr. Steell told me that he's coming,
too."

"Not exactly to see me, I'm afraid," smiled Kenneth.

"Who else?" she retorted. "If you mean me, you're mistaken. He
doesn't need to make the uncomfortable trip to Hoboken to see me."

Her brother-in-law smiled, amused at her petulance.

"My dear," he said, "you don't know what hardships a man will endure
for the girl he's sweet on." Wit