“Who was it, Ma’am Soft-airs, indeed. Cousine, do let me try a bit of rouge some time--that blush was so becoming to you. Mr. Haviland, of course; and I peeked through the crack of the door when the servant said you weren’t at home. But tell me, Gracie dear, do you think it would do for me to ask Mr. Townley to dinner next time? You know, I’ve had all the younger men, and he dances like an angel.” “Why, Mamie, you don’t mean to have a dance?” “No, no, stupid, but for next winter, I mean. I’m determined to have Charlie lead my german, you know; they say all the young married women are fighting for him. And the only other man is Daisy Blake, and he’s too slow for anything. Besides, I’m dead in love with Townley, you know.” “Oh,” said Gracie. “I heard he gave a supper-party last night, and both Mrs. Gower and Mrs. Malgam were there, and the Earl of Birmingham; and afterward they all went in masks to a public ball. Wasn’t it horrid? And just think what fun it would be to get him away from those married women? Why, Marion Roster told me last year that the débutantes had no chance at all. I’ll see about that.” And Mamie stamped her little foot and tossed her pretty head defiantly; and indeed it looked as if the filly might make it hard running for the four-year-olds. And Charlie Townley, had he seen it, might have felt that he had gotten his reward on earth. For I doubt if any poet’s bays or any soldier’s laurel were more highly prized by maid or wife than Mamie, the rich, well-bred, well-born, rated Charlie Townley’s style of excellence. _Le style c’est l’homme_, says some old, grave writer; what then is style to a giddy young woman? And I doubt if either bays or laurel be so marketable. And Charlie was a man of the world, familiar to its stock-exchanges; who did not mean to marry, but meant to marry well. Gracie looked at Mamie Livingstone with some faint wonder; and then the young girl laughed loudly, as was usual, and kissed her, and called her a dear old thing; and laughed again, as if she had been jesting. And so the other one supposed it, and smiled back through Mamie’s many kisses. “Look here,” Mamie began again, with a gesture of triumph; and she pulled a note from her pocket, and waved it triumphantly in Gracie’s face. “I’ve got a note from him already!” “Oh, Mamie----” “’Sh, Ma’am Prunes and Prisms--it’s only about a summer fan. I asked him to get a kind which I knew had only been made at one place down-town, and they were all sold out, so he had to write and tell me so. See, isn’t the signature nice? ‘your devoted servant, Charles Townley’--and such a nice manly hand.” And Mamie roguishly made pretence of kissing it, the while her eyes danced with merriment. Gracie looked at her--puzzled; and Mamie only laughed the more. “There, there, don’t look so grave, you delightful old darling; it’s not so awfully serious, after all--yet.” And with the final burst of laughter that accompanied her last word, Mamie danced from the room.