he was
supreme in the very holy of holies of the city's social life.

Mrs. Melrose came unannounced upon her daughter to-day, and Alice's
colourless warm cheek flushed with happiness under her mother's fresh,
cold kiss.

"Mummy--you darling! But how did you get here? Miss Slater says that the
streets are absolutely impassable!"

"I came in the 'bus, dear," Mrs. Melrose said, very much pleased with
herself. "How warm and comfy you are in here, darling. But what did I
interrupt?"

"You didn't interrupt anything," Alice said, quickly. "Chris telephoned,
and he's bringing Henrici--the Frenchman who wrote that play I loved
so--to tea. Isn't that fun? I'm so excited--and I think Chris was such a
duck to get hold of him. I was translating it, you know, and Bowditch,
who was here for dinner last night, told me he'd place it, if I finished
it. And now I can talk it over with Henrici himself--thanks to Chris!
Chris met my man at the club, and told him about me, and he said he
would be charmed. So I telephoned several persons, and I tried to get
hold of Annie----"

"Annie has a lunch--and a board meeting at the hospital at four,"
Annie's mother remembered, "and Leslie is at a girls' luncheon
somewhere. Annie had breakfast with me, and was rushing off afterward.
She's quite wonderfully faithful about those things."

"Well, but you'll stay for lunch and tea, too, Mummy?" Alice pleaded.
She was lying back in her pillows, feasting her eyes upon her mother's
face with that peculiarly tense devotion that was part of her nature.
Rarely did a day pass without their meeting, and no detail touching
Annie's life, Annie's boys or husband, was too small to interest Alice.
She was especially interested, too, in Leslie, the eighteen-year-old
daughter that her brother Theodore had left to his mother's care; in
fact, between the mother and daughters, the one granddaughter and two
little grandsons, and the two sons-in-law of the Melrose family, a deep
bond existed, a bond of pride as well as affection. It was one of their
favourite boasts that to the Melroses the unity and honour of the family
was the first consideration in the world.

But to-day Mrs. Melrose could not stay. At one o'clock she left Alice to
be put into her prettiest robe by the devoted Miss Slater, saw with
satisfaction that preparations for tea were noiselessly under way,
called Regina, odorous of tea and mutton chops, from the pantry, and
went out into the quiet cold of