ny other man
I know. If he hadn't chosen the gown he would have been a poet. I love the
padre, with his snow-white hair and his withered leathery face. He was
with the old king all through the freeing of Italy."

"And had a fine time explaining to the Vatican," sniffed the mother.

"Some day I am going to confess to him."

"Confess what?" asked Celeste.

"That I have wished the Calabrian's voice would fail her some night in
_Carmen_; that I am wearing shoes a size too small for me; that I should
like to be rich without labor; that I am sometimes ashamed of my calling;
that I should have liked to see father win a prizefight; oh, and a
thousand other horrid, hateful things."

"I wish to gracious that you would fall violently in love."

"Spiteful! There are those lovely lace collars; come on."

"You are hopeless," was the mother's conviction.

"In some things, yes," gravely.

"Some day," said Celeste, who was a privileged person in the Harrigan
family, "some day I am going to teach you two how to play at foils. It
would be splendid. And then you could always settle your differences with
bouts."

"Better than that," retorted Nora. "I'll ask father to lend us his old set
of gloves. He carries them around as if they were a fetish. I believe
they're in the bottom of one of my steamer trunks."

"Nora!" Mrs. Harrigan was not pleased with this jest. Any reference to the
past was distasteful to her ears. She, too, went regularly to confession,
but up to the present time had omitted the sin of being ashamed of her
former poverty and environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her
shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money;
all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within
a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless
indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness
of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the
family bark. It never entered her scheming head that the reluctance of the
father and the indifference of the daughter were the very conditions that
drew society nearward, for the simple novelty of finding two persons who
did not care in the least whether they were recognized or not.

The trio invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the
war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries.
Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she