eakfast. Lily had never seen her when she
was not cuirassed in shining black, with small tight boots, and an air of
being packed and ready to start; yet she never started.

She looked about the drawing-room with an expression of minute scrutiny.
"I saw a streak of light under one of the blinds as I drove up: it's
extraordinary that I can never teach that woman to draw them down evenly."

Having corrected the irregularity, she seated herself on one of the
glossy purple arm-chairs; Mrs. Peniston always sat on a chair, never in
it.

Then she turned her glance to Miss Bart. "My dear, you look tired; I
suppose it's the excitement of the wedding. Cornelia Van Alstyne was full
of it: Molly was there, and Gerty Farish ran in for a minute to tell us
about it. I think it was odd, their serving melons before the CONSOMME: a
wedding breakfast should always begin with CONSOMME. Molly didn't care
for the bridesmaids' dresses. She had it straight from Julia Melson that
they cost three hundred dollars apiece at Celeste's, but she says they
didn't look it. I'm glad you decided not to be a bridesmaid; that shade
of salmon-pink wouldn't have suited you." Mrs. Peniston delighted in
discussing the minutest details of festivities in which she had not taken
part. Nothing would have induced her to undergo the exertion and fatigue
of attending the Van Osburgh wedding, but so great was her interest in
the event that, having heard two versions of it, she now prepared to
extract a third from her niece. Lily, however, had been deplorably
careless in noting the particulars of the entertainment. She had failed
to observe the colour of Mrs. Van Osburgh's gown, and could not even say
whether the old Van Osburgh Sevres had been used at the bride's table:
Mrs. Peniston, in short, found that she was of more service as a listener
than as a narrator.

"Really, Lily, I don't see why you took the trouble to go to the wedding,
if you don't remember what happened or whom you saw there. When I was a
girl I used to keep the MENU of every dinner I went to, and write the
names of the people on the back; and I never threw away my cotillion
favours till after your uncle's death, when it seemed unsuitable to have
so many coloured things about the house. I had a whole closet-full, I
remember; and I can tell to this day what balls I got them at. Molly Van
Alstyne reminds me of what I was at that age; it's wonderful how she
notices. She was able to tell her mother ex