“Dear, dear,” said the president, hurriedly, “I’m afraid that, in spite of all my efforts, we have not discussed to-day’s topic as consistently as usual. It does seem to me sometimes that you girls talk as much as men. Of course you do not expect to be listened to as they do, still—” “I should think not,” said the girl with the Roman nose; “did I ever tell you of the time I went to make a round of calls with Ethel, and—” “Found she was leaving her sister’s cards by mistake?” said the girl with the classic profile. “Indeed you did. And wasn’t it funny that she left one for Maria, to whom her sister hadn’t spoken for a year? Just like Ethel, too.” “This was another time,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “You know how much Ethel talks? Well, we called on one woman I had never met before, and she asked Ethel subsequently if I was not deaf and dumb!” “Never mind, she knew better when she met you next time,” said the girl with the eyeglasses; “but what is the topic for discussion to-day?” “‘The Heroine of To-day,’” said the president, “and I think—” “I suppose that is the bachelor girl,” said the brown-eyed blonde. “Or the one who marries a foreigner,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Talk about bravery! Why, I knew a girl who became engaged to a Russian before she could pronounce his name.” “Speaking of that,” said the girl with the classic profile, “isn’t it horrid of Elizabeth to send out her wedding cards so long ahead. No chance this time to say that we didn’t know it in time to select a present.” “I shall pretend that I never received my invitation at all,” said the president; “one must protect one’s self somehow.” “I do hate to go shopping with her nowadays,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “if I don’t buy a lot of things myself I am miserable, and if I do her reproachful gaze seems to say, ‘I know the cost of this will come out of my present.’” “As if you wouldn’t ask your father for the money for that, anyhow!” said the girl with the classic profile. “I shall do nothing of the kind, dear; it would make too much trouble. I don’t know why a man will cheerfully give a wedding present himself, but let—” “One of the women of the family ask for money for the same purpose and he feels that he is being robbed,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “I suppose it is on the same principle that makes a man insist upon treating every other man he meets and then grumble because his wife wants oysters after the play,” said the brown-eyed blonde. “Just as he feeds a girl on candy before he marries her and then complains of dentists’ bills afterward,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin; “men are so illogical!” “Indeed they are,” said the girl with the Roman nose; “one of them will keep on telling a girl that she has a swan-like carriage, and then think her vain if he catches her watching her own movements in the glass.”