paper alone, even if the latter can be
peppered with coronets.

I don't know what curse or mildew collects on poor Irish earls, but it
simply goes nowhere to be one in London; and then there was the handicap
of Father's two quaint marriages. Diana's mother was a music-hall
"artiste" (isn't that the word?) without any money except what she
earned, and also--I heard a woman say once, when she thought Little
Pitcher's ears were engaged elsewhere--without any "h's" except in the
wrong places.

My mother, the poor darling, must have been just as unsuitable in her
way. She was a French chocolate heiress, whom Father married to mend the
family fortunes, when Diana was five; but some one shortly after sprang
on the market a better chocolate than her people made, so she was a
failure, too, and not even beautiful like Diana's mother. Luckily for
her, she died when I was born; but neither she nor the "artiste" can
have helped Father much, with the smart friends of his young days when
he was one of the best-looking bachelors in town.

Diana was considered beautiful, but "the image of her mother," by those
inconvenient creatures who run around the world remembering other
people's pasts; and though she and Father were invited to lots of big
crushes, they weren't asked to any of the charming intimate things which
Diana says are the right background for a debutante. This went to Di's
heart and Father's liver, and made them both dreadfully hard to get on
with. Cinderella wasn't in it with me, except that when they were
beastly, I was beastly back again; a relief to which Cinderella probably
didn't treat herself, being a fairy-story heroine, stuffed with virtues
as a sultana cake is stuffed with plums.

The day I asked Father for the white frock with roses on it in
Selfridge's window, he was so disagreeable that I went to my room and
slammed the door and kicked a chair. It was true that I did not need the
dress, because I never went anywhere and was only a flapper (it's almost
more unpleasant to be called a flapper than a "mouth to feed"); still,
the real pleasure of having a thing is when you don't need it, but just
want it. The farther away from me that gown seemed to recede, the more I
longed for it; and when Father told me not to nag or be a little idiot,
I determined that somehow or other, by hook or crook, the frock should
hang on my wall behind the chintz curtain which calls itself a wardrobe.

The morning of the refusal, Fat