chool-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurked
in Sally's eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that enveloped
me in an atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfumery and fried
lard. Mrs. Whalen is a famous cook. Said she:

"We've been thinking of calling ever since you were brought home, but
dear me! you've been looking so poorly I just said to the girls, wait
till the poor thing feels more like seeing her old friends. Tell me, how
are you feeling now?"

The three sat forward in their chairs in attitudes of tense waiting.

I resolved that if err I must it should be on the side of safety. I
turned to sister Norah.

"How am I feeling anyway, Norah?" I guardedly inquired.

Norah's face was a study. "Why Dawn dear," she said, sugar-sweet, "no
doubt you know better than I. But I'm sure that you are wonderfully
improved--almost your old self, in fact. Don't you think she looks
splendid, Mrs. Whalen?"

The three Whalens tore their gaze from my blank countenance to exchange
a series of meaning looks.

"I suppose," purred Mrs. Whalen, "that your awful trouble was the real
cause of your--a-a-a-sickness, worrying about it and grieving as you
must have."

She pronounces it with a capital T, and I know she means Peter. I hate
her for it.

"Trouble!" I chirped. "Trouble never troubles me. I just worked too
hard, that's all, and acquired an awful 'tired.' All work and no play
makes Jill a nervous wreck, you know."

At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a playful finger at me. "Oh, now,
you can't make us believe that, just because we're from the country!
We know all about you gay New Yorkers, with your Bohemian ways and your
midnight studio suppers, and your cigarettes, and cocktails and high
jinks!"

Memory painted a swift mental picture of Dawn O'Hara as she used to
tumble into bed after a whirlwind day at the office, too dog-tired to
give her hair even one half of the prescribed one hundred strokes of the
brush. But in turn I shook a reproving forefinger at Flossie.

"You've been reading some naughty society novel! One of those
millionaire-divorce-actress-automobile novels. Dear, dear! Shall I, ever
forget the first New York actress I ever met; or what she said!"

I felt, more than saw, a warning movement from Sis. But the three
Whalens had hitched forward in their chairs.

"What did she say?" gurgled Flossie. "Was it something real reezk?"

"Well, it was at a late supper--a studio supper given in