Indeed, receiving, simply receiving, is one of the greatest tests of the Educated Heart. To such as possess it, thanks are something like mortgages, to be paid in installments. Why, after five years, Crystabel often refers to a gift that has pleased her. Yes, and lies about it, too, sometimes! Mind you, I didn’t say that Crystabel was always really sincere. I said that she was really kind. She may dislike that gift exceedingly; she may stick it up in the garret, or give it to her laundress. But Crystabel, having the Educated Heart, appreciates kindness in others. It is the motive for that gift she cares for, not its value; and hence her tactful, iterated gratefulness. But the others--oh, the thousand negligent others! YOU give your friend a bottle of perfume. She thanks you, and pop it goes immediately into a bureau drawer, and she begins to talk about Harry’s wife. You give her a lovely veil, and, right before your incredulous eyes, she wads it into a bunch, jams it into her bag and takes another chocolate. That bunch of jonquils you brought the invalid--haven’t you seen it carried off into some far corner, as if it were deadly mandragora, or hustled into a miscellaneous mass of wholesale offerings and the subject hurriedly changed? Last month I visited my young cousin Frizia. “Why, what a pretty jet necklace!” they all cried, at dinner. In pleased, self-conscious expectancy I waited for Frizia to say, “Oh yes, my cousin brought it to me.” Did she? No. Not a word except, “Oh, d’you like it?” I should have been grateful, I suppose, that my little cousin even wore that necklace. Haven’t you, too, often moaned: _I shot a present into the air;_ _It fell to earth, I know not where!_ WHY, there are innumerable ways of insulting the giver of a present. Listen, for instance, to this acknowledgment, from Zeroine: “All my life,” she wrote, “I have given away pink azaleas to my friends; and this is the first time I ever received one.” How’s that for egoism? Compared to her noble, extravagant and advertised generosity didn’t my one gift loom pretty small? Rather clever she is, that Zeroine, a positive genius, sometimes--you know them--at making one wish one hadn’t tried to be nice to her. As the bride of one of my confreres I met her first in Paris. To celebrate her marriage I racked my brains for something charming enough with which to greet a new friend. Something not costly, you know, yet perfect and unique. Well, the loveliest things of that sort I had found, were the marvelous ribbon roses made by the Comtesse de Laumont for the benefit of the widows of officers. Every one is a work of art--a beautiful and faithful portrait of some particular rose from her own garden on the Marne.