"Gladys Eliot! Why, she's gone with her people to London for two months. I saw her name in the _Teutonic's_ list last Thursday. Those Eliots would never in the world let slip another chance for her to make the great match they've set out to get." "Nevertheless," said Mrs. Prettyman, with some show of spirit, "Mrs. Eliot, who is my old school-friend, wrote me, the day before they sailed, that Gladys had taken it into her head to stay behind, and begged me to keep her till her aunt can come up from Baltimore in July and take the girl in charge." "Three weeks of Gladys Eliot!" remarked Mrs. Gervase. "My poor woman, I pity you. By the end of the month there will be no health in you. A professional beauty, who has run the gauntlet of four or five years of incessant praises, has been advertised like 'Pear's Soap,' in England and America, and has failed to make her _coup_! I remember what Alan Grove said about her no longer ago than Christmas of last year: 'I haven't the advantage of Miss Eliot's acquaintance, but her and her kind I hold in abhorrence,--denationalized Americans; hangers-on of older civilizations that make a puppet-show of them; spoiled for home, with no rightful place abroad; restless, craving what no healthy-minded husband of their own kind can give them.' Bless me--and _those two_ are going to _meet here_!" "I think Mr. Alan Grove need not concern himself," said Mrs. Prettyman, driven to bay. "Mrs. Eliot mentioned in her letter that Gladys--it is no secret, evidently--is nearly, if not quite, engaged to marry some one the family feels is _in all respects_ all they could have hoped for her." "Then it must be either that Colonel Larkyns, the very rude man with large feet, who walked all over my velvet gown at the Egertons', last winter,--came over with Lord Glenmore, whom the Eliots tried for and couldn't get,--or else McLaughlin, the Irishman who made such a lot of money in Montana. The two men were running evenly, 'twas said. Let me think--didn't I see her at Claremont on McLaughlin's coach, last month? Pray, my dear, are we to congratulate you on having Mr. McLaughlin, also, as a member of your household, before long?"