"I had to officiate at Monster's Christmas tree, which was in the boudoir, laden with the treasures of the four corners. I presented a diamond-studded gold purse and a sable cape to my wife and received a diamond-studded cigar knife--I have two others--and a mink-lined coat in return. I was dragged to a half-dozen different houses to deliver presents and collect the same, and witness the tragedy of Bea's receiving a vanity case she had given someone else two years before and which had evidently been going the rounds. It was a bit disconcerting to have it turn up. "I had a ponderous seven-course dinner at Mr. Constantine's, during which I had to kiss Aunt Belle under the mistletoe and pretend to be elated, hear several yards of grand opera torn off on the new talking machine in its nine-hundred-dollar Chinese case, take my father-in-law to the club, return to find Trudy and Gay having a Yuletide word with my wife. Trudy brought a concoction of purple chiffon, jet beads, and exploded hen which was entitled a breakfast jacket, and in return she drew down a pair of silver candlesticks. "After that we dressed in all our grandeur for the fancy-dress ball at Colonel Tatlock's, Beatrice as Juliet and I as the young and dashing Romeo! Shivering in our finery we drove to the Tatlock's to make fools of ourselves until three A. M. and shiver home again with aching heads and a handful of damaged cotillion favours. About the same sort of thing happened on New Year's." He laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound, inviting a response. Beatrice dashed in, to Mary's relief, to bestow--over a week late--a Christmas present of perfume and a black-silk waist. "Mr. O'Valley has explained how rushed I have been with my classes," she began, prettily, "but I have thought of you in all your sorrow. I lost my dear mother when I was too young to remember her, still it means a bond between us.... Oh, you are not wearing black? Dear me, that's too bad.... Well, you may have to go to somebody's funeral where you feel you want to wear it--a black waist is always useful." She managed to carry Steve off to look at a set of pink glass sherbet cups she was to give her father for his birthday, and Mary was conscious of a certain pity for the Gorgeous Girl--prompted not so much by her present state of affairs as her inevitable future.