Jardine. "You are
rather an astonishing creature. You're so big, so vital; you absorb
knowledge like a sponge takes water--"

"And for the same purpose," laughed Kate. "That it may be used for the
benefit of others. Tell me some more about me. I find me such an
interesting subject."

"No doubt!" admitted Mrs. Jardine. "Not a doubt about that! We are
all more interested in ourselves than in any one else in this world,
until love comes; then we soon learn to a love man more than life, and
when a child comes we learn another love, so clear, so high, so
purifying, that we become of no moment at all, and live only for those
we love."

"You speak for yourself, and a class of women like you," answered Kate
gravely. "I'm very well acquainted with many women who have married
and borne children, and who are possibly more selfish than before. The
Great Experience never touched them at all."

There was a tap at the door. Kate opened it and delivered to Mrs.
Jardine a box so big that it almost blocked the doorway.

Mrs. Jardine lifted from the box a big Leghorn hat of weave so white
and fine it almost seemed like woven cloth instead of braid. There was
a bow in front, but the bow was nested in and tied through a web of
flowered gold lace. One velvet end was slightly long and concealed a
wire which lifted one side of the brim a trifle, beneath which was
fastened a smashing big, pale-pink velvet rose. There was an ostrich
plume even longer than the other, broader, blacker, as wonderful a
feather as ever dropped from the plumage of a lordly bird. Mrs.
Jardine shook the hat in such a way as to set the feather lifting and
waving after the confinement of the box. With slender, sure fingers
she set the bow and lace as they should be, and touched the petals of
the rose. She inspected the hat closely, shook it again, and held it
toward Kate.

"A very small price to pay for the breath of life, which I was rapidly
losing," she said. "Do me the favour to accept it as casually as I
offer it. Did I understand your description anywhere near right? Is
this your hat?"

"Thank you," said Kate. "It is just 'the speaking image' of my hat,
but it's a glorified, sublimated, celestial image. What I described
was merely a hat. This is what I think I have lately heard Nancy Ellen
mention as a 'creation.' Wheuuuuuu!"

She went to the mirror, arranged her hair, set the hat on her head, and
turned.

"Gracious Heaven!" said Mr