It was rather disappointing to come to the conclusion, not at all romantic and stimulating or in keeping with the conclusions Caleb Patmore’s “Victorious Victoria” had arrived at in an amazingly short space of time. It was like a child’s suddenly being put on everyday relations With Santa Claus himself and finding out, besides his ability to ride reindeer skyward, and, toy-laden, shoot down narrow chimneys, that he had a gouty foot the same as Oyster Jim’s, was rather caustic if his eggs were overdone, was a Republican, body, boots and breeches, the same as Ali Baba, and, if he lost three games of cribbage straight running, was distinctly “peeved.” So Thurley advanced beyond the illusions of the uninitiated. Before she came into Bliss Hobart’s dominion she had been one of the public, the sort of public who believe newspaper reports of opera singers having frolicsome boa-constrictors as family pets, to welcome them when they stagger home under van-loads of orchids from the evening’s work! She saw now with the clear, innocent eyes of youth, which is so often wiser than dictatorial and narrow middle age, that the common lot was the universal lot and that in the sum total of all things the famous ones were spared no more nor less nor given greater qualities of endurance or supreme power. Had the invitation to the “family” dinner come a week ago, Thurley would have hesitated before accepting. But Ernestine Christian’s personality—as yet it was not Ernestine Christian’s real self since she betrayed that to no one—had woven a big-sister armor about Thurley’s wild-rose self. She was eager to become one of the family, unconscious of the honor for which many had sighed and bribed for in vain. She showed the note to Miss Clergy and became very flapperlike on the subject of her costume. “Wear any you like,” Miss Clergy said fondly. “Dear me, I sha’n’t go. I’m an old lady, sleepy as an infant by half after eight.” “Must I always be alone?” Thurley protested. Miss Clergy, whose girlhood had been bounded on all sides by the “Polite Letter Writer” and “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” hesitated. “Take a maid,” she urged. “For protection? Goodness, no! Why, I’ve walked at midnight in the darkest road at home, when Philena would be taken very ill and we had to have the north end doctor. I’ll go alone—and wear my green velvet.” “If you want more dresses—” began Miss Clergy cheerily. When one had a wild-rose girl with the voice of a lark, revenge just naturally lost its grim and ugly aspects. But Thurley shook her head and vanished, singing snatches of her exercises and finding out that she was not so tired as she had fancied; the languor had magically vanished. She propped Hobart’s tantalizing note on her dressing table as she did her hair. Thurley— Come and be christened at seven-thirty. The family must know the baby. B. H.