ntances here he becomes independent and leaves. If something isn't
done, the better class of people will have to move out of the country."

"Or go back to doing their own work," said Mrs. Ranger.

Mrs. Whitney smiled vaguely--a smile which said, "I'm too polite to
answer that remark as it deserves."

"Why didn't you bring Jenny along?" inquired Mrs. Ranger, when they were
in the "front parlor," the two older women seated, Adelaide moving
restlessly about.

"Janet and Ross haven't come yet," answered Mrs. Whitney. "They'll be on
next week, but only for a little while. They both like it better in the
East. All their friends are there and there's so much more to do." Mrs.
Whitney sighed; before her rose the fascination of all there was to "do"
in the East--the pleasures she was denying herself.

"I don't see why you don't live in New York," said Mrs. Ranger. "You're
always talking about it."

"Oh, I can't leave Charles!" was Mrs. Whitney's answer. "Or, rather
he'd not hear of my doing it. But I think he'll let us take an
apartment at Sherry's next winter--for the season, just--unless Janet
and I go abroad."

Mrs. Ranger had not been listening. She now started up. "If you'll excuse
me, Mattie, I must see what that cook's about. I'm afraid to let her out
of my sight for five minutes for fear she'll up and leave."

"What a time your poor mother has!" said Mrs. Whitney, when she and
Adelaide were alone.

Del had recovered from her attack of what she had been denouncing to
herself as snobbishness. For all the gingham wrapper and spectacles
anchored in the hair and general air of hard work and no "culture," she
was thinking, as she looked at Mrs. Whitney's artificiality and listened
to those affected accents, that she was glad her mother was Ellen Ranger
and not Matilda Whitney. "But mother doesn't believe she has a hard
time," she answered, "and everything depends on what one believes
oneself; don't you think so? I often envy her. She's always busy and
interested. And she's so useful, such a happiness-maker."

"I often feel that way, too," responded Mrs. Whitney, in her most
profusely ornate "_grande dame_" manner. "I get _so_ bored with leading
an artificial life. I often wish fate had been more kind to me. I was
reading, the other day, that the Queen of England said she had the tastes
of a dairy maid. Wasn't that charming? Many of us whom fate has condemned
to the routine of high station feel the same way."

It w