tion from _Hearts Astray_ at a meeting of the club. I read a few
nights ago, in a paper I happened to pick up at Alice's, that she was
staying in New York at the Hollingsgate. Her publishers were to give
her a dinner last night, I believe."

Margaret Edes started. "I had not seen that," she said. Then she
added in a queer brooding fashion, "That book of hers had an enormous
sale. I suppose her publishers feel that they owe it to her to give
her a good time in New York. Then, too, it will advertise _Hearts
Astray_."

"Did you like the book?" asked Annie rather irrelevantly. Margaret
did not reply. She was thinking intently. "It would be a great
feature for the club if we could induce her to give a reading," she
said at length.

"I don't suppose it would be possible," replied Annie. "You know they
say she never does such things, and is very retiring. I read in the
papers that she was, and that she refused even to speak a few words
at the dinner given in her honour."

"We might ask her," said Margaret.

"I am sure that she would not come. The paper stated that she had had
many invitations to Women's Clubs and had refused. I don't think she
ought because she might be such a help to other women."

Margaret said nothing. She leaned back, and, for once, her face was
actually contracted with thought to the possible detriment of its
smooth beauty.

A clock in the house struck, and at the same time Maida and Adelaide
raced up the steps, followed by gleeful calls from two little boys on
the sidewalk.

"Where have you been?" asked Margaret. Then she said without waiting
for a reply, "If Martha Wallingford would come, I should prefer that
to Lydia Greenway."

Maida and Adelaide, flushed and panting, and both with mouths full of
candy, glanced at their mother, then Maida chased Adelaide into the
house, their blue skirts flitting out of sight like blue butterfly
wings.

Annie Eustace rose. She had noticed that neither Maida nor Adelaide
had greeted her, and thought them rude. She herself had been most
carefully trained concerning manners of incoming and outgoing. She,
however, did not care. She had no especial love for children unless
they were small and appealing because of helplessness.

"I must go," she said. "It is six o'clock, supper will be ready."
She glanced rather apprehensively as she spoke at the large white
house, not two minutes' walk distant across the street.

"How very delightful it is to be as punctua