it as she looked
rebelliously away.

Mrs. Frost had installed herself as favorite since Mrs. Alger had
praised her hair. She now came forward, and, dropping fondly at her
knee, looked up to her for instruction. "Don't you think that she showed
her sense in giving up at the very beginning, if she found she was n't
equal to it?" She gave her head a little movement from side to side, and
put the mass of her back hair more on show.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Alger, looking at the favorite not very favorably.

"Oh, I don't think she's given up," Miss Gleason interposed, in her
breathless manner. She waited to be asked why, and then she added, "I
think she's acting in consultation with Dr. Mulbridge. He may have a
certain influence over her,--I think he has; but I know they are acting
in unison."

Mrs. Merritt flung her grass-straw away. "Perhaps it is to be Dr.
Mulbridge, after all, and not Mr. Libby."

"I have thought of that," Miss Gleason assented candidly. "Yes, I
have thought of that. I have thought of their being constantly thrown
together, in this way. It would not discourage me. She could be quite as
true to her vocation as if she remained single. Truer."

"Talking of true," said Mrs. Scott, "always does make me think of blue.
They say that yellow will be worn on everything this winter."

"Old gold?" asked Mrs. Frost. "Yes, more than ever."

"Dear!" cried the other lady. "I don't know what I shall do. It
perfectly kills my hair."

"Oh, Miss Gleason!" exclaimed the young girl.

"Do you believe in character coming out in color?"

"Yes, certainly. I have always believed that."

"Well, I've got a friend, and she wouldn't have anything to do with a
girl that wore magenta more than she would fly."

"I should suppose," explained Miss Gleason, "that all those aniline dyes
implied something coarse in people."

"Is n't it curious," asked Mrs. Frost, "how red-haired people have come
in fashion? I can recollect, when I was a little girl, that everybody
laughed at red hair. There was one girl at the first school I ever went
to,--the boys used to pretend to burn their fingers at her hair."

"I think Dr. Breen's hair is a very pretty shade of brown," said the
young girl.

Mrs. Merritt rose from the edge of the piazza. "I think that if she
hasn't given up to him entirely she's the most submissive consulting
physician I ever saw," she said, and walked out over the grass towards
the cliff.

The ladies looked after her