Poor Madame de la Barre! She tried very hard indeed to explain that the many purchases made by the young ladies were not such as should have been made by young girls not yet entered into the great world. She made no impression upon Regina. "These are small matters," she said, with a magnificent air; "not essentials in any way. They will make mistakes at first--I don't doubt it, Madame--we have all done it in our day, but they will learn, oh, they will learn." Madame shrugged her shoulders. She felt that she was dealing with a fool of the first water, upon whom valuable breath was wasted. After all, these were _English_ girls. What did it matter? They were going to live in a land where it is the rule for women to make themselves such objects as Madame Whittaker herself. It is no exaggeration to say that when Mrs. Whittaker had finally swept out of the schoolmistress's presence, Madame de la Barre sat down and closed her eyes with a genuine shudder. "What does it matter, these pigs of English, what they wear? Thou art too good-natured, Helöise," she went on, apostrophizing herself. "Thou canst forbid these little piglets of English from wearing their too disgraceful garments. What happens to them after they have left thy roof is no concern of thine. Thou art too good-natured, Helöise!" So the "little piglets of English" continued unchecked in their career of vicious millinery, and when the time came for them to return to the paternal roof, they went, taking with them a stock of garments calculated to make the Park, as they put it, "sit up." And truly the Park did sit up, for the appearance of Regina's two girls was something quite out of the common. "It is the latest fashion," said Regina, with an air of conviction to a neighbor who remarked that Maudie's hat was a little startling. "The girls brought all their things from Paris. It is the seat of good dressing." You will observe that Regina never left any doubt in expressing her opinions. Hers was a positive nature. She would say, "My daughters _are_ beautiful, my daughters _are_ elegant, my daughters attract an enormous amount of attention," but never "I _think_ my daughters are"--this, that, or the other. So she gave forth, with the air of one whose fiat could not be questioned, the intimation that as Maudie and Julia's things had come from Paris, they must be the _dernier cri_. And the Park thought they were horrid. Poor Regina! She was very happy in the return of her girls, so happy that she took a little holiday from her public work, and spent a whole week in talking things over, in arranging and rearranging their rooms, in examining all their purchases, in discussing what kind of life they should live in the immediate future. "Now, what are your own ideas?" she demanded, on the second day after the return home of the girls, when they had settled down to tea and muffins.