sion there. The colour, the movement, the sensation
of living in a world where every one was fabulously wealthy, was at once
a stimulation and a despair. Brougham after brougham passed, victoria
after victoria, in which beautifully gowned women chatted gayly or sat
back, impassive, amidst the cushions. Some of them, indeed, looked bored,
but this did not mar the general effect of pleasure and prosperity. Even
the people--well-dressed, too--in the hansom cabs were usually animated
and smiling. On the sidewalk athletic, clear-skinned girls passed her,
sometimes with a man, sometimes in groups of two and three, going in and
out of the expensive-looking shops with the large, plate-glass windows.

All of these women, apparently, had something definite to do, somewhere
to go, some one to meet the very next, minute. They protested to
milliners and dressmakers if they were kept waiting, and even seemed
impatient of time lost if one by chance bumped into them. But Honora had
no imperative appointments. Lily Dallam was almost sure to be out, or
going out immediately, and seemed to have more engagements than any one
in New York.

"I'm so sorry, my dear," she would say, and add reproachfully: "why
didn't you telephone me you were coming? If you had only let me know we
might have lunched together or gone to the matinee. Now I have promised
Clara Trowbridge to go to a lunch party at her house."

Mrs. Dallam had a most convincing way of saying such things, and in spite
of one's self put one in the wrong for not having telephoned. But if
indeed Honora telephoned--as she did once or twice in her innocence--Lily
was quite as distressed.

"My dear, why didn't you let me know last night? Trixy Brent has given
Lula Chandos his box at the Horse Show, and Lula would never, never
forgive me if I backed out."

Although she lived in an apartment--in a most attractive one, to be sure
--there could be no doubt about it that Lily Dallam was fashionable. She
had a way with her, and her costumes were marvellous. She could have made
her fortune either as a dressmaker or a house decorator, and she bought
everything from "little" men and women whom she discovered herself. It
was a curious fact that all of these small tradespeople eventually became
fashionable, too. Lily was kind to Honora, and gave her their addresses
before they grew to be great and insolent and careless whether one
patronized them or not.

While we are confessing the trials and