spread or going to
the musical.

Patricia never forgot that evening.

The supper, with its merry chat, was gall and wormwood to her. Mrs.
Nat's kind eyes seemed probing for something Patricia could not show
her. Doris Leighton's quiet pleasantries and Constance's gay quips were
dust and ashes in her mouth, and when finally she had walked across the
Square to the big brick house and the door had closed on Bruce and the
outside world, she was actually ready for tears.

"I'll never go anywhere again, if this is the way they are going to fuss
about it," she said to herself, as she went slowly upstairs to the
dressing-room. "I don't see how they can be so mean."

The brilliance of the house and the guests, together with Rosamond's
gracious greeting as she met her and led her to be introduced to the
hostess, soon worked a cure for her low spirits and she began to enjoy
herself at once.

"This is real life," she thought joyfully.

"Milano was asking me about you," said Rosamond as they threaded their
way through the crowded rooms.

Patricia nodded. "I know," she returned brightly. "At her tea-party the
other day. You told me about it."

She was so taken up with the delightful agitation of finding herself in
such a large and imposing assembly that she scarcely thought of her
words.

Rosamond laughed her slow laugh. "No, tonight," she corrected. "She is
here, you know. Mrs. Filmore is giving the dinner in her honor."

Patricia had room for swift surprise. "Why, you never told me!" she
exclaimed impetuously. "How strange!"

"I imagine it slipped your mind," suggested Rosamond carelessly. "I am
sure I told you. Come, let us speak to her before she sings. Mrs.
Filmore has persuaded her to give just one song, and I don't know when
she will choose."

Patricia demurred, feeling suddenly rather small and insignificant in
her girlish white net frock among all the glittering costumes about her.
It is sad to confess that her anger at Elinor returned hotly as she
thought of the forbidden trimming. That Rosamond had tactfully ignored
to speak of its absence made her more angry at Elinor.

"I'd rather sit down here and look about for a while," she said,
dropping into a tiny divan in a half-deserted corner with such a
determined air of gayety that Rosamond, after a rather weak protest,
went off by herself to make one of the group about the prima donna.

Patricia watched her moving across the crowded room with all the
assur