a wouldn't let me. I hadn't anything to put on, anyhow. But
I'd have gone in my shirt if they'd let me. The nearest to a real party
I'd been to before to-night was a clam-bake. I don't count church
sociables. Out West there used to be celebrations in a sort of bar-room
place, but even I couldn't stand those. To think I've always yearned so
to have a good time, and now I'm having it! Oh, Hat, wasn't it lovely!
That's a mighty nice house of the Fosses. How good it looked, all fixed
up! The flowers and candles, one room opening into the other, everything
just right. Hat, Mrs. Foss is the finest woman I ever knew, and in my
opinion makes the most elegant appearance. She's the one I'd choose to
be like if I could. Just watch me copy-cat her. You'll see. 'My dear
Mrs. Hawthorne, pray don't speak of the trouble! It's been nothing but a
pleasure. Be sure you call upon us whenever we can be of the smallest
service.'"

"You've caught her, Nell, you silly thing! Down to the ground."

"I'm going to pattern after her till it comes natural. How sweet they
all are! How kind they've been!" Mrs. Hawthorne grew dreamy.

"Your dress, Nell, was a perfect success," the other ran on--"perfect.
How did you think mine looked? I'll tell you a compliment I got for you,
if you'll tell me one you got for me. If not, I'll save it up in my
secret breast till you're ready to make a trade."

"To think," said Mrs. Hawthorne, still engrossed by her dream of absent
and bygone things, "that we're the same little girls--and one of them
barefoot!--who used to play house together on a sand-heap of old Cape
Cod and pin on any old rag that would tail along the ground and play
ladies! 'My dear Mrs. Madison, how do you do?'"

"'My dear Mrs. Hawthorne, my toes are just as sore as they can be!'"

"'That comes, my dear Mrs. Madison, of you dancing like a crazy woman
from ten o'clock till one, in tight shoes!'--Mrs. Hawthorne! Mrs.
Madison! Aurora! Estelle! To think, after all these years, we should be
playing our old play that we played at Wellfleet and East Boston, only
playing it with real things, in Paris and Florence!"

"Nell, I'm so afraid of forgetting and calling you Nell that every time
I catch myself near doing it I can feel the cold sweat break out on my
brow."

"What would it matter? We aren't impostors, Hat. We're just having fun,
and don't want our real names to queer it. If they should slip out when
we aren't thinking, they'd simply sound like