Vic has a friend who lives in a flat near the Park for the Season, and
once I was taken there. I thought it quite beautiful, but though the
friend's a Countess and very rich, the flat is poor compared with this
topheavy nest of Mrs. Taylour's.

In a white drawing-room where the only spots of colour were the
roses--masses of pink roses in gold bowls--a Madonna-like being was
reclining in a green and white billow of a lace tea gown, on a white
sofa. She held out both hands to Mrs. Ess Kay, and looked at me,
apologising for not getting up.

When you come to examine her, the only thing really Madonna-like about
Mrs. Harvey Richmount Taylour is her way of doing her hair. It's parted
in the middle, and folds softly down in brown wings on either side of
rather a high forehead, white enough to match her drawing-room. She has
gently curved eyebrows, too; but under them her dark eyes are as bright
and sharp as a fox-terrier's. She has pale skin, red lips, and thin
features, with a stick-out chin, cut on the same pattern as Mrs. Ess
Kay's though it isn't as square yet, because she is years
younger--perhaps not more than twenty-eight.

Mrs. Ess Kay introduced us, in a more precise way than we have at home,
and Mrs. Taylour said that she was very happy to meet me, which I
should have thought particularly kind, if I hadn't found out that it's
a sort of formula which Americans think it polite to use.

She talked to me a good deal, and wanted to know how I liked America,
of course; I was sure she would do that.

Then Mrs. Ess Kay explained that I was interested in her apartment
being up so high, and thought her plucky to live in it before the house
was finished. This amused Mrs. Taylour very much.

"We are just thankful to be in it," she said. "I was tired out with
housekeeping, the servant question is too awful."

"I see you've a trained nurse-maid for Rosemary," said Mrs. Ess Kay.
"We met them going out."

"Isn't Rosemary a pet?" Mrs. Taylour asked me, as if she were speaking
of somebody else's little girl.

"Sweet," I said. "Has she been ill?"

"No. Do you think she looks delicate?"

"It was the hospital nurse----" I began; but Mrs. Taylour laughed.

"Oh, I suppose that _would_ strike you as funny. But we often have them
for our children. We poor New York women have so much to do socially,
we have to be relieved of _all_ feeling of responsibility, if we don't
want to come down with nervous prostration. I shall hang