ed to admire. All the women were in low-cut
evening dresses of softly-tinted silk or satin, with their hair gleaming
in sleek waves and long ear-rings dangling down. The young hostess wore
ear-rings, also; deep-blue gems flashed out from them, to match her
trailing deep blue velvet gown--Raymond Bonnet had once said Missy
should always wear that special shade of deep blue.

Let us peep at the actual Missy as she sits there dreaming: she has
neutral-tinted brown hair, very soft and fine, which encircles her head
in two thick braids to meet at the back under a big black bow; that
bow, whether primly-set or tremulously-askew, is a fair barometer of the
wearer's mood. The hair is undeniably straight, a fact which has often
caused Missy moments of concern. (She used to envy Kitty Allen her
tangling, light-catching curls till Raymond Bonner chanced to remark he
considered curly hair "messy looking"; but Raymond's approval, for some
reason, doesn't seem to count for as much as it used to, and, anyway, he
is spending the summer in Michigan.) However, just below that too-demure
parting, the eyes are such as surely to give her no regret. Twin
morning-glories, we would call them-grey morning-glories!--opening
expectant and shining to the Sun which always shines on enchanted
seventeen. And, like other morning-glories, Missy's eyes are the
shyest of flowers, ready to droop sensitively at the first blight of
misunderstanding. That is the chiefest trouble of seventeen: so few are
there, especially among old people, who seem to "understand." And that
is why one must often retire to the summerhouse or other solitary places
where one can without risk of ridicule let one's dreams out for air.

Presently she shook off her dreams and returned to the scarcely
less thrilling periodical which had evoked them. Here was another
photograph--though not nearly so alluring as that of the Lady Sylvia;
a woman who had become an authoritative expounder of political and
national issues--politics again! Missy proceeded to read, but her full
interest wasn't deflected till her eyes came to some thought-compelling
words:

"It was while yet a girl in her teens, in a little Western town ("Oh!"
thought Missy), that Miss Carson mounted the first rung of the ladder
she has climbed to such enviable heights. She had just graduated from
the local high school ("Oh! oh!" thought Missy) and, already prodded by
ambition, persuaded the editor of the weekly paper to gi