Mrs. Payton, grateful for a little interest, said: "No; I've been doing up Christmas presents most of the afternoon. I'm pretty tired! Tying all those ribbons is dreadfully hard work," she ended, with an air of achievement that was pathetic or ridiculous, as one might happen to look at it. Her daughter, glancing at the array of white packages tied with gay ribbons, did not see the pathos. That slightly supercilious droop of the lip which always made Mrs. Payton draw back into herself, showed Fred's opinion of the "hard work"; but she only said, laconically: "Mr. Weston took me to call on the old maids. No, I don't want any tea, thank you." "You oughtn't to call them 'old maids'; it isn't respectful." "It's what they are--at least, the younger one is. The other one is very nice. But they are both of 'em of the vintage of 1830." Mrs. Payton was sufficiently acquainted with her daughter's picturesque, but limited, vocabulary to know what "vintage" meant, so she said: "Oh, no; they are not so old as that. I don't think Miss Graham is much over seventy." "I waked Miss Mary up!" Frederica said, joyfully. "I am sorry for that," Mrs. Payton sighed. Fred shrugged her shoulders. "Grandmother will tattle,--yes, she was there; deaf as a post, and all dolled up like a plush horse;--so I suppose I might as well tell you just what happened." She told it, lightly enough. "Old Weston threw fits in the taxi, coming home," she ended. "I should think he might! Freddy, really--" Her daughter looked at her with narrowing but not unkind eyes. "I wish I knew why people fuss so over nothing," she said. Mrs. Payton put her empty cup back on the tray with a despairing sigh: "If you can't _see_ the impropriety--" "Oh, of course, I see what you call 'impropriety'; what I don't see is why you call it 'improper.' What constitutes impropriety? The fact that, as Grandmother says, 'it isn't _done_'? I could mention a lot of things that are done, that _I_ would call improper! Wearing nasty false fronts, as Grandmother does, and silly tight shoes. A thing is true, or it's a lie. That distinction is worth while. But what you call 'impropriety' isn't worth bothering about." "Truth and falsehood are not the only distinctions in the world. Things are fitting, or--not." "Howard and I talked, in an empty flat," Fred said; "I suppose if it had been in our parlor, with the Egyptian virgin out in the hall chaperoning us, it would have been 'fitting'?" Mrs. Payton wiped her eyes. "There's no use discussing anything with you. When _I_ was a young lady, if my mother had reproved--" Fred made a discouraged gesture: "Oh, don't let's go back to the dark ages. As for Howard--I'll see him at my office, if it makes you any happier." "Why can't he call on you in your own house? You cheapen yourself by--" "Mother, there's no use! I couldn't stand it. Mortimore--" "_Frederica!_"