man spirits of
her age, laughed aloud.

"You needn't mind me," said Mrs. Ellis cheerfully; "I'm eating potatoes
now!"

"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and
disapproval.

Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had
beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner."

"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they--did they taste good?"

"They tasted _heavenly_, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try
something new--the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of
one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!"

"If it is obesity pills, I--"

"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins,
you heartless child, what are you laughing at?"

Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze.
There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout
people, _that_ glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady.
She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and
still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she
was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at herself squarely, her
form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the
full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile
view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as
large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old,
and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton
built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her
mother weighed before her death.

"How should _I_ look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had
asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look _noble_!"

"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in
your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing
like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of _Harper's Bazar_."

Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume,
while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle
which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's
thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of
fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!"

Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor,
as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved o