ht to remember yours,
though. It makes you think of funerals and weddings and things like
that. I love names which--"

"Her name is Heath, mother! _Not_ Wreath."

"Oh yes--of course! This certainly is a beautiful day. If El Paso
hadn't been so far away we'd have brought one of our cars with us,
but I don't see any sense spending all that money when you can hire
cars so cheap by the hour. Madeleine don't like to ride in hired
cars. I like any kind of car."

So far I had had no opportunity of doing more than bend my head, a
chance to speak not having been permitted me, but, at her mother's
pause for breath, the girl at the window looked down upon the street
and then turned her face toward me. "That's a pretty car you came
in. Can you drive it yourself?"

"I have no car. That's Kitty's--I mean Mrs. McBryde's. That reminds
me. I have a message from her. She could not call this afternoon,
but she asks me to say she hopes you can both come in Thursday
afternoon and have tea with her. She is always at home on Thursdays
and--"

"Yes, indeed; we'll be glad to come." Mrs. Swink took up Kitty's
card, which had been sent up with mine, and looked at it through her
lorgnette, suspended around her neck by a chain studded with
amethysts, large and small. "We'll come with pleasure. Won't we,
Madeleine? Shall we write and tell her?"

"Of course not, mother. Didn't you just hear Miss Heath say it was
her regular 'at home' day? You don't write notes for things like
that." Miss Swink's eyes again turned in my direction. "I'm much
obliged, but I don't think I can come. I've an engagement for
Thursday."

"If it's with Harrie, he won't mind waiting awhile." With
unconcealed eagerness Mrs. Swink twisted herself in her tight and
too-embracing chair, for the moment forgetting, seemingly, that I was
a hearing person. "You can't afford to miss a chance like that.
You'll meet the best people. Harrie can stay to dinner. I'll get
tickets for the theatre."

"He won't come to dinner. I asked him. Says he's sick." The girl's
lips curled slightly. "He's always sick when--"

"Madeleine!" The sudden change in Mrs. Swink's voice was beyond
belief, and with a shrug of her shoulders the girl again looked out
of the window. I was making discoveries with unexpected rapidity,
discoveries that were filling me with speculation and promising
conclusions that were at variance with Selwyn's, and for a moment the
uncomfort