am training for it--have even taken to spats, which I abhor, and have accustomed myself to walking without looking at my feet, though I am a little afraid white will rather discompose me. Pearl declines to be excited at all, but she is an unusually quiet soul, and says she is not going to rush herself into a decline simply because Ethel Bumpschus, a mere acquaintance, is to marry a nobleman that she could have had herself if she would have spent the money. She will go to the church and walk down the aisle and back, looking as well as she can, fight her way through the mob outside, drive to the house, sip the health of the happy pair, and go home to oblivion. Of course I am the oblivion. She must have some lingering regret for the Duke, and I cannot blame her for it. She says frankly that she would give anything to be the Dowager Duchess of Nocastle, but that title is not purchasable, so she is perfectly satisfied with her real-estate agent. Pearl has a way of saying things like that when we are walking on Madison Avenue, but even there a few people are always about, which makes it rather aggravating. And we walk on Madison Avenue a great deal now, and she seems to delight in such maddening remarks, but when we are home in the quiet of the library, when Mrs. Radigan has made the tea and become absorbed in picture-papers, when she is in her deep chair and I in mine, close by, I try again to draw them from her, but she just smiles--blows a ring of smoke, and smiles inscrutably as she watches it float away. CHAPTER XXIII _The Wedding of the Season_ Mrs. Radigan pulled off her gloves, tossed her hat on the drawing-room table, threw her coat at her maid, and sank into a deep chair. "Well, thank Heaven, it is all over," she said, "that we got through it alive, and now we shall see something in the papers besides the Bumpschuses and the Nocastles and all those tiresome people." She called for tea, and when it came Pearl Veal would have made it for her but her sister waved her away firmly. "You must rest, my dear," she said. "Quiet your nerves with a smoke and offer up silent thanksgiving that you are living at this minute." She seemed to think that Pearl should be on the verge of collapse, which amused me greatly, for when I passed a cigarette to my fiancée I saw that her hand was as steady as a church with the match. Then she smiled at me and gave her head a slight inclination toward Sally. "No one was hurt," she said. "The police arrangements were excellent, only it took so many men to get Ethel and the Duke safely into the carriage, that we were left unguarded for a moment." "It's a wonder you were not killed," said Mrs. Radigan.