ton's locks.

Dressed, and evidently waiting with forced patience for the
termination of these overhead maneuvers of her friend, sat Lou,--Mrs.
Jack Dawson,--a woman whom most people called handsome. If she were
handsome, no one could have told why, for her beauty was a thing which
could not be defined. She was tall and thin, with hair, eyes, and
complexion of a brownish neutral tint, and bore in face and figure, a
stamp of defiance which probably accounted for a certain eccentricity
in eschewing hair dyes and cosmetics. Her face was full of little
irregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn a
bit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other when
she talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancy
to her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made them
believe her handsome.

Mrs. Worthington's coiffure being completed, she regaled herself with
a deliberate and comprehensive glance into the street, and the outcome
of her observation was the sudden exclamation.

"Well I'll be switched! come here quick Lou. If there ain't Fanny
Larimore getting on the car with Dave Hosmer!"

Mrs. Dawson approached the window, but without haste; and in no wise
sharing her friend's excitement, gave utterance to her calm opinion.

"They've made it up, I'll bet you what you want."

Surprise seemed for the moment to have deprived Mrs. Worthington of
further ability to proceed with her toilet, for she had fallen into a
chair as limply as her starched condition would permit, her face full
of speculation.

"See here, Belle Worthington, if we've got to be at the 'Lympic at two
o'clock, you'd better be getting a move on yourself."

"Yes, I know; but I declare, you might knock me down with a feather."

A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington,
seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met
a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid
avoirdupois.

"After all she said about him, too!" seeking to draw her friend into
some participation in her own dumbfoundedness.

"Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore's a fool, don't you?"

"Well, but I just can't get over it; that's all there is about it."
And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person
in a state of voiceless stupefaction.

In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and
tight in a black silk gown of