river with the other men--and always splitting her dances, and
forgetting her promises, and wearing the rings and pins of her adorers."

"And the fun was, Ju," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, girlishly, with bright
color in her cheeks, "that when Jim came there to give two lectures,
you know, all the older girls were crazy about him--and he was ten
years older than I, you know, and I never DREAMED--"

"Oh, you go to, Ann! You never DREAMED!" said Miss Ives, lazily.

"Honestly, I didn't!" Mrs. Arbuthnot protested. "I remember my brother
Billy saying, 'Babs, you don't think Dr. Arbuthnot is coming here to
see ME, do you?' and then it all came over me! Why, I was only
eighteen."

"And engaged to Billy's chum," said the doctor.

"Well," said the wife, naively, "he knew all along it wasn't serious."

"You must have been a rose," said Miss Ives, "and I would have hated
you! Now, when I went to dances," she pursued half seriously, "I sat in
one place and smiled fixedly, and watched the other girls dance. Or I
talked with great animation to the chaperons. Ann, I've felt sometimes
that I would gladly die, to have the boys crowd around me just once,
and grab my card and scribble their names all over it. I didn't dress
very well, or dance very well--and I never could talk to boys." She
began to trace a little watercourse in the sand with an exquisite
finger tip. "I was the most unhappy girl on earth, I think! I felt
every birthday was a separate insult--twenty, and twenty-two, and
twenty-four! We were poor, and life was--oh, not dramatic or big!--but
just petty and sordid. I used to rage because the dining-room was the
only place for the sewing-machine, and rage because my bedroom was
really a back parlor. Well!--I joined a theatrical company--came away.
And many a night, tired out and discouraged, I've cried myself to sleep
because I'd never have any girlhood again!"

She stopped with a half-apologetic laugh. The doctor was watching her
with absorbed, bright eyes. Mrs. Arbuthnot, unable to imagine youth
without joy and beauty, protested:

"Julie--I don't believe you--you're exaggerating! Do you mean you
didn't go on the stage until you were twenty-four!"

"I was twenty-six. I was leading lady my second season, and starred my
third," said the actress, without enthusiasm. "I was starred in 'The
Jack of Clubs.' It ran a season in New York and gave me my start. Lud,
how tired we all got of it!"

"And then I hope you went back home, J