“Humph,” returned the blue-eyed girl, “there are some things I don’t quite understand myself—such as the banking system, and the reason why your dressmaker tells you calmly that she must have two yards and a half more of your dress material, when you have plainly informed her that you bought a remnant. But as for your question, it is so simple that a man could answer it. No woman ever did, or ever will, like to play second fiddle to another one, and—” “Oh, nonsense,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “it is just a question of tact. Let a man make his mother believe that she has chosen his wife and she—” “Yes, and wouldn’t it be pleasant to have your mother-in-law tell you, every time she wanted you to discharge the cook or do without a new gown, that her son would never have married you but for her!” cried the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Speaking of mothers-in-law,” said the girl with the classic profile, “Nell is to have a new woman in that capacity. I found her crying the other day because she had heard that Madame considered her too domestic to make her son a good wife!” “Yes, I know,” said the blue-eyed girl, “and did you hear of Alice’s woes? No? Well, you know, she and Morton fell in love at first sight, and became engaged two weeks later. After the engagement was announced, she was invited to visit his people in Iowa, and went in fear and trembling, for she did not know much about them, and Morton could not be there at the time.” “Hadn’t the courage, you mean,” murmured the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Very likely, dear. Well, his mother was as bad as Alice had feared. Her ideas were all in direct opposition to Morton’s, and the poor girl almost fretted herself into nervous prostration trying to please them both. After all, when she got home, she found—” “That she had been mistaken in her feelings for Morton, and it didn’t make any difference whether they were pleased or not!” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “I knew how it would end when you began.” “No. She discovered that Madame was only his stepmother, after all! Imagine trying to please a mother-in-law and a stepmother combined!” “I’d rather not fancy it,” said the president, with a shudder. “Girls, I only hope you will be as lucky when you are married as I am, for—” “You aren’t going to tell us all of Tom’s virtues again, are you?” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, uneasily. “When my mother-in-law becomes unpleasant, I just ask her to go with me to spend the day with Tom’s grandmother,” went on the president, affecting not to hear the last remark, “she doesn’t dare to refuse, because the old lady has some china which we both want, and she’s afraid I may succeed in wheedling it out of her! It is great fun to hear my own mother-in-law lectured by _her_ mother-in-law on the sins which the former thinks I have appropriated entirely to my own use.” “But, ah—doesn’t Tom’s mother take it out of you on the way back?” queried the blue-eyed girl.