spapers were always
alarming. No one ever knew just how much money Sally Owen gave away; but
some of her gifts in recent years had been too large to pass unnoticed
by the press. Only a few months before she had established a
working-girls' home in memory of a daughter--her only child--who had
died in early youth, and this crash from a clear sky had aroused in Mrs.
Bassett the gravest apprehensions. It was just so much money said to be
eighty thousand dollars--out of the pockets of Marian and Blackford;
and, besides, Mrs. Bassett held views on this type of benevolence. Homes
for working-girls might be well enough, but the danger of spoiling them
by too much indulgence was not inconsiderable; Mrs. Bassett's altruism
was directed to the moral and intellectual uplift of the mass (she never
said masses) and was not concerned with the plain prose of housing,
feeding, and clothing young women who earned their own living. Mrs.
Owen, in turning over this home to a board of trustees, had stipulated
that music for dancing should be provided every Saturday evening;
whereupon two trustees, on whom the Christian religion weighed heavily,
resigned; but Mrs. Owen did not care particularly. Trustees were only
necessary to satisfy the law and to assure the legal continuity of
Elizabeth House, which Mrs. Owen directed very well herself.

Mrs. Bassett encouraged Marian's attentions to Mrs. Owen's young
visitor; but it must be said that Marian, on her own account, liked
Sylvia and found delight in initiating her into the mysteries of
Waupegan life. She taught her to ride, to paddle a canoe, and to swim.
There were dances at the casino, and it was remarkable how easily Sylvia
learned to dance. Marian taught her a few steps on the first rainy day
at the Bassett house, and thereafter no one would have doubted that
Sylvia had been to dancing-school with the boys and girls she met at the
casino parties. Marian was the most popular girl in the summer colony
and Sylvia admired her ungrudgingly. In all outdoor sports Marian
excelled. She dived from a spring-board like a boy, she paddled a canoe
tirelessly and with inimitable grace, and it was a joy to see her at the
tennis court, where her nimbleness of foot and the certainty of her
stroke made her easily first in all competitions. At the casino, after
a hard round of tennis, and while waiting for cakes and lemonade to be
served, she would hammer ragtime on the piano or sing the latest lyrical
offe