Mabel had announced to a few of her cronies that she would show Evelyn Porter how things were done; and as the Country Club was new, she chose it as the place for her exhibition. Mabel was two years older than Evelyn; they had never been more than casually acquainted, and now that Evelyn's college days were over,--Mabel had "finished" several years before,--and they were to live in the same town, it seemed expedient to the older girl to take the initiative, to the end that their respective positions in the community might be definitely fixed. Evelyn's name carried far more prestige than Mabel's; the Margraves had not been in the Clarkson Blue Book at all, until Mabel came home from school and demonstrated her right to enlistment among the elect. She dressed herself as sumptuously as she dared for a morning call and drove the highest trap that Clarkson had ever seen up Porter Hill. The man beside her was the only correctly liveried adjunct of any Clarkson stable,--at least this was Mabel's opinion. Whatever people said of Mabel and her ways, they could not deny that her clothes were good, though they were usually a trifle pronounced in color and cut. She wore about her neck a long, thin chain from which dangled a silver heart. Mabel's was the largest that could be found at any Chicago jeweler's. Its purpose in Mabel's case was to convey to the curious the impression that there was a photograph of a young man inside. This was no fraud on Mabel's part, for she carried in this trinket the photograph of a popular actor, whose pictures were purchasable anywhere in the country at twenty-five cents each. While Mabel waited for Evelyn to appear, she threw open her new driving coat, which forced the season a trifle, and studied the furnishings of the Porter parlor, criticising them adversely. She was not clear in her mind whether she should call Evelyn "Miss Porter" or not. Clarkson people usually said "Evelyn Porter" when speaking of her. In Mabel's own case they all said "Mabel." When Evelyn came into the parlor she seemed very tall to Mabel, and impulse solved the problem of how to address her. "Good morning, Miss Porter." She gave her hand to Evelyn, thrusting it out straight before her, yet hanging back from it archly as if in rebuke of her own forwardness. This was decidedly Tyringhamesque, and was only one of the many amiable and useful things she had learned at Miss Alton's school. Mabel sat up very straight in her chair when she talked, and played with the silver heart. "I didn't ask for the others, as it's a wretchedly indecent hour to be making a call." "Oh, the girls are up and about," said Evelyn. "I shall be glad--" "Oh, please don't trouble to call them! I came on an errand. You know the Country Club has just taken a new lease of life. Have you been out yet? It's a bit crude"--this phrase was taught as a separate course at Tyringham--"but there's the making of a lovely place there."