"Excellent!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Duser, writing rapidly in her book. "You really ought, my dear Elizabeth, to preserve a careful memoranda of these interesting mental movements of your offspring," she observed convincingly. "Every properly constructed parent should endeavour to so assist science. However crudely and unscientifically expressed, such records would prove of incalculable value to the student." She turned to Doris with a complete change of manner. It was no longer the ontological Mrs. Van Duser, but the great lady from Beacon Street who spoke. "You have been very rude indeed, my child," she said sternly; "and little girls should never be rude; but I will take you with me in the carriage to purchase the toilet article referred to, and send you home afterwards, if your mother will permit." As Elizabeth watched the flushed and triumphant Doris, departing in state in the Van Duser carriage, the jingling contents of her bank in her small pocket, she was conscious of a bewildering sense of failure. She had sincerely tried to impress a lesson of obedience and a respect for the rights of others upon the mind of her child, and, lo! the culprit was enjoying a long-wished-for treat! The arrival of Miss Evelyn Tripp, in a hansom cab with a small much-belabelled trunk on top, successfully diverted her mind from this and other ethical problems. Miss Tripp's recent misfortunes had as yet left no traces on her slight, elegant personality. She entered quite in her old fashion, amid a subdued rustle of soft silken garments, a flutter of plumes and a gracious odour of violets. "My dear!" she exclaimed, clasping and kissing Elizabeth, quite in the latest mode. "How well you are looking! Indeed, you are younger and far, far prettier than the day you were married! How vividly I remember that day, and I am sure you do! How I did work to have everything pass off as it should, and so many persons have told me since that it was really the sweetest wedding they ever saw! It hardly seems possible that it was so long ago. What! You don't tell me that great boy is Carroll! Come here and let Aunty Evelyn kiss you, dear. And Doris? She was such a dear, tiny thing when I saw her last. Oh, that is the baby; you say! No; Elizabeth--not that great child! Fancy! I declare I feel like a Methuselah when I look at my friend's children. I hate to grow old--really old; don't you know." Miss Tripp paused to remove her plumed hat, while Elizabeth hastened to assure her friend that she really hadn't changed in the least. This was quite true, since Miss Tripp was of that somewhat thin and colourless type of American womanhood upon which the passing years appear to leave little trace.