This means that it has been proposed to add one or two tributary features to the main function. Remembering your wizardry at palm reading, I concluded that your raven locks and appealing eyes would be a perfect match for a gypsy costume, and that a dear little gypsy who could tell wise people their virtues and foolish people their fortunes would be a priceless asset. I know you don’t believe in palmistry any more than I do, but isn’t it your very scepticism that enables you to practice the art with a dash of diablerie that carries conviction? If you won’t accept, I may be obliged to play the gypsy myself. Can you picture my straw-colored plaits in such an Oriental role? But I know your artistic sense will not permit me to do with amateurish bungling what you can do with professional skill. Besides, two peerless young gentlemen, whom I could name if I chose, will pine away with melancholy if you refuse. Before you answer "yes" or "no," come and spend Wednesday afternoon with Yours devotedly, Cornelia. Mrs. Barr turned the letter over to Emily, who read it while her mother grimly closed the Bible and waited. "I thought as much!" cried the young lady, as she reached the signature. "It’s from Cornelia Covert." "Who is she, pray?" "Don’t you remember the girl who created a scandal by running away with Percival Houghton, the English artist?" "Who already had a wife and children in England?" "Yes, that was Cornelia Covert. You may recall that she was one of my school friends, when we lived in McDonough Street." "Don’t remind me of her past," said Mrs. Barr curtly. "Her present is bad enough. Ring for Laura, please. How did Janet come to know her? Through Robert Lloyd, perhaps. Has she been meeting him again, too?" "No. It came about in this way. Cornelia left Mr. Houghton not long after their elopement. Or, more likely, he left her. At all events she returned to New York. She was brazen enough to celebrate the occasion. She invited Janet—Janet, though I was her classmate—to a big party in the Lorillard tenements." "If I remember aright, Janet asked you to go with her?" "Yes. But I declined as soon as I heard that tenement artists, movie actors and other queer people like Robert Lloyd were to be present at the affair." "The party was given, so Janet assured me at the time, by some society woman." "It was held in Miss Lucy Chandler Duke’s studio. I did not know then that the Chandler Dukes were radicals as well as millionaires. And, as Janet begged me very hard not to tell you the particulars, I kept the matter a secret." Mrs. Barr tingled with irritation at what she chose to view as Janet’s deceit. "She said a great deal about the Chandler Dukes!" she exclaimed bitterly, "and nothing at all about Cornelia Covert or Robert Lloyd." "I did not think Janet would misuse the occasion to form a fast and furious friendship with a person like Cornelia Covert," said Emily, insidiously fanning the flame.