“Very different,” said the girl with the classic profile. “Girls, I heard to-day that Jack Bittersweet is thinking of throwing up his partnership, and emigrating to Australia. I beg your pardon, Dorothy, did you speak?” “Yes, dear, I was about to say that I think ‘Woman as a Parliamentarian’ is the most interesting topic we have ever discussed. By the way, I wonder if the climate of Australia is as unhealthy as some people think! I—I am so fond of Effie that I should hate to have anything happen to her brother.” “I think Effie could bear it, dear,” said the president, “even in her present state of health. She says Jack is so cross that a hyena would be amiable by comparison.” “Jack Bittersweet cross!” cried the brown-eyed blonde. “Why, he is one of the nicest fellows I ever knew, and—” “But after all, you are hardly a judge of masculine dispositions, dear,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Your acquaintance with the sex has been so limited, you know. Oh, Evelyn, I’ve been intending to ask you if we can’t take up theosophy, and discuss it thoroughly at one of our meetings in the near future. I am so anxious for a thorough knowledge of it.” “Indeed we can,” cried the president, heartily. “You don’t know how pleased I am to hear you say that, Emily,—well, if there is one thing this club can safely pride itself upon it is its thoroughness; and I am sure that is more than most organizations can do—!” “I know it,” said the blue-eyed girl; “why, my father belongs to a club which has taken six months to study the financial problems of Europe and the United States. They are not yet through discussing the subject—and yet they have the temerity to call themselves students!” “I hope you have pointed out to them the superiority of our system over—” “Well, no, dear; somehow it does not seem wise to discuss such a subject with one’s father. Dear, dear, do you suppose that girls were so very different in the days when our fathers were young?” “Humph, no,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “but they were much more afraid of remaining single. Besides, our fathers were young, too, in those days, and ever so much easier to please. Still,” she added, thoughtfully, “I don’t know that it is altogether that. No one is so easily subjugated as an elderly man who has become a widower. It is so long since girls have really tried to make themselves agreeable to him, that all their little ways are new to him.” “H’m, yes—unless he has grown daughters of his own,” said the brown-eyed blonde. “I don’t see what difference that makes. They don’t try their little ways of—of being nice on _him_; and seeing them tried on some one else is very different.” “Isn’t it?” said the girl with the classic profile. “Now, for instance, it is very interesting to have a man pay one compliments; but how it does bore one to hear him say the very same things about another girl!”