m
to meet you. Do you know French?"

"Mother speaks better French than I do in spite of my work at college,"
confessed Molly.

"Well, I studied French with the old time method more as we study Latin,
and while my accent is vile, my verbs are all right. I am going to try
to brace up in accent, and Molly and Judy are endeavoring to perfect
themselves in grammar. But you have not met our friend Judy, Miss Julia
Kean," said Mrs. Brown.

"No, I have not, but from all the complaints Henny Pace has made of her,
I know she must be charming. When Henny gives a boarder a good
character, I know without meeting her that she is some spineless old
maid who is afraid to call her soul her own, or that she is a hypocrite
like me who wants peace at any price. Now she tells me that Miss Kean is
head-strong, self-willed, flippant, slangy, ill-bred, inconsiderate----"

"Oh, how could she tell such things?" interrupted Molly. "Why, Cousin
Sally, Judy is splendid! She is independent and knows her own mind, and
all of us are a little slangy, I am afraid; but she is very well-bred
and Mother says the most considerate visitor she has ever had."

"Well, child, her report of your friend had no effect on me but to make
me want to meet the young lady, so I can judge for myself. I want you
and your mother to come and dine with us this evening at six-thirty and
to bring Miss Kean with you. We will go to the opera to hear _Louise_.
It is wonderful and I know you will like it," and la Marquise d'Ochte
smiled on her young Kentucky cousin and pressed her hand, pleased to see
how she could speak up for her friend.

"We shall be delighted to come," said Mrs. Brown, "and I know Judy will
appeal to you. She is a dear child and as free from affectation as you
yourself. Now, Sally, tell me how we must go to work to find an
apartment and where we should settle ourselves. We are far from affluent
and want something inexpensive but, of course, respectable. Judy is to
be with us; also a Miss Elise O'Brien, whose acquaintance we made on the
steamer. You know so many persons, I wonder if you ever met her mother:
she was a Miss Lizzie Peck, who married a young artist, George O'Brien,
some twenty-five years ago here in Paris. At his death she married Mr.
Huntington."

"Know Lizzie Peck? I should say I did,--the outrageous piece! You see,
before Jean succeeded to the estate and before I had my windfall from
Aunt Sarah Carmichael, we lived in a very small way and