"My dear, there again you have me. Let us say that they are in the flower of life. One of them, so much I did remark, was rather more blooming than the other. Perhaps she was younger." "The miss?" "The married one. But perhaps it was only the difference between a rose and--" he searched--"let us say a bunch of mignonette. The rose--here I believe I tread safely on the road of description--had of that flower the roundness and solidity, if nothing else." "Stout?" "We will call it well developed, nobly planned. But what would be the good of telling you the color of these ladies' hair and eyes had I noticed it? It will help you much more effectively to pick them out in a crowd to be told they are very American." "Voices, too, I suppose." "Of course. You don't strictly mean high and nasal, do you? All I can say with any positiveness is that one of them had what I will call a warm voice--a voice, to make my meaning quite clear, like the crimson heart on a valentine." "I am enlightened. Was it the mignonette one?" "No; the hardy-garden rose." "And what did she say to you in her warm crimson voice?" "I have told you. She called for help." "You said, I hope, that your wife and daughters would be very happy to call on them and be of use if they could." "I did." The time-tried, well-mated friends were looking over at each other across the table, not expressing any more than at all times the quiet, daily desire of each to further the interests and comforts of the other. "Where are they staying?" the lady continued to question. "Hôtel de la Paix." "And they haven't any letters, introductions, addresses, anything?" "Apparently not." "Where are they from?" "Let me see. Did they mention it? My dear, if they did, I don't recall it." "New York?" "No. If I am to guess, I shouldn't guess that." "Out West?" "H-m, they might be. No, I guess they're Yankees." "Boston?" "If so, not aggressively. Where do most people come from? There's nothing very distinctive about most." "Perhaps it will be on their cards." Then the Fosses talked of other things. But when Mrs. Foss, after dinner, went upstairs for her scarf,--it was too cool now to sit out of doors in the evening without a wrap,--she remembered the cards, and took them out of her husband's pocket. "Miss Estelle Madison," she read. "Mrs. Aurora Hawthorne." There was nothing else. She continued a little longer to look at the bits of pasteboard in her hand. "Well-sounding names, both of them--like names in a play. Mrs. Aurora. She's a widow, then." Mrs. Foss considered. "Or else divorced." * * * * *