Aunt Fan was delighted. “Of course I’ll go, child! We’ll have a wonderful time--you’ll see! You’ll be crazy about it! Just wait till you see Fifth Avenue--and Peacock Alley! You know, Jim’ll just be pleased to the bone to beau us around--you can’t see anything of New York at night without a man, of course--and if we see it with him, we’ll see it _right_!” She beamed affectionately upon the girl for the first time since Dean Wolcott’s exodus from Dos Pozos. “Honey, I’m tickled _pink_ to go with you. We’ll see all the new shows, and you know what I’m thinking of?-- You know, I _may_ have my face lifted!” Ginger thought grimly that she, personally, might have her heart lifted, but she didn’t say so. She went downtown and saw about reservations and bought a wardrobe trunk and put her two evening gowns in it (Aunt Fan had banned all the rest) and in a fortnight they were on their way across the continent. It surprised Ginger a great deal and at first annoyed her considerably to find how much country there seemed to be outside of California. She had known, of course, that New York would be larger and more impressive than San Francisco or Los Angeles, but she had felt that most of the desirable out-of-doors was contained in her own state. The great city itself startled and saddened her; she had not realized that there were as many people as that in the world, and most of them tired-looking and pale and in a hectic hurry to get somewhere else. They stopped at an opulent and ornate hotel and Aunt Fan was very gay and amiable, and on their first day--they had arrived in the morning--they shopped on the Avenue, lunched at the Ritz, did a matinée and had tea, and then Jim Featherstone called for them and took them down to dinner at the Brevoort and to a play, and afterwards to one of the roofs, where they ate again and danced. Jim Featherstone was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with a rather melancholy expression and much skill in assembling a meal. He and Aunt Fan were unfeignedly glad to see each other, and Ginger was content to have them talk together and leave her to herself. They left her to herself a great deal in the days and evenings which followed--not that they ever forgot her or neglected her, but she had a sense of being with them but not of them, and she felt that it always would be so. Her aunt, languid as a wilted lily at Dos Pozos, developed an amazing energy in New York; from their nine o’clock tray breakfast in their sitting-room until one the next morning, she was in perpetual and enthusiastic motion--always panting a little, taking her short, chugging steps in her short-vamped, high-heeled pumps, her blue eyes prominent, like a gold fish’s.