er, ceasing to compliment, and speaking only the truth.

"Simplicity!" said Miss Vanhorn: "I am tired of it. I hope, Anne, you
will not sing any simplicity songs here; those ridiculous things about
bringing an ivy leaf, only an ivy leaf, and that it was but a little
faded flower. They show an extremely miserly spirit, I think. If you can
not give your friends a whole blossom or a fresh one, you had better not
give them any at all."

"Who was it who said that he was sated with poetry about flowers, and
that if the Muses must come in everywhere, he wished they would not
always come as green-grocers?" said Dexter, who knew perfectly the home
of this as of every other quotation, but always placed it in that way to
give people an opportunity of saying, "Charles Lamb, wasn't it?" or
"Sheridan?" It made conversation flowing.

"The flowers do not need the Muses," said Miss Vanhorn--"slatternly
creatures, with no fit to their gowns. And that reminds me of what Anne
was saying as you came up, Mr. Dexter; she was calmly and decisively
observing that Mrs. Bannert was very ugly."

A smile crossed Dexter's face in answer to the old woman's short dry
laugh.

"I added that if Mrs. Lorrington was here, people would see real
beauty," said Anne, distressed by this betrayal, but standing by her
guns.

Miss Vanhorn laughed again. "Mr. Dexter particularly admires Mrs.
Bannert, child," she said, cheerfully, having had the unexpected
amusement of two good laughs in an evening.

But Anne, instead of showing embarrassment, turned her eyes toward
Dexter, as if in honest inquiry.

"Mrs. Bannert represents the Oriental type of beauty," he answered,
smiling, as he perceived her frank want of agreement.

"Say creole," said Miss Vanhorn. "It is a novelty, child, which has made
its appearance lately; a reaction after the narrow-chested type which
has so long in America held undisputed sway. We absolutely take a
quadroon to get away from the consumptive, blue-eyed saint, of whom we
are all desperately tired."

"New York city is now developing a type of its own, I think," said
Dexter. "You can tell a New York girl at a glance when you meet her in
the West or the South. Women walk more in the city than they do
elsewhere, and that has given them a firm step and bearing, which are
noticeable."

"To think of comparisons between different parts of this raw land of
ours, as though they had especial characteristics of their own!" said
Miss Vanhor