Her mother accepted this dictum as final--a proof of Jane's altered status, and of the discretion with which she was carrying herself. "Of course I am not a society girl," was the way Jane turned the matter over in her own head; "I am a benevolent old maid, with a capacity for society when occasion offers." Jane had kept this point distinctly in view, and had now extricated herself from the squeezed and anomalous position which, for the last few years, she had occupied between her two sisters. "Alice thinks she knows everything, just because she's married," Jane had said to herself a year back; "and Rosy thinks she knows everything just because--well, I'm sure I can't exactly tell why. "But anyhow, between the two, I'm being pretty well flattened out. I've got to do _something_." And she had. Jane, running on the new track she had laid down for herself, had regained the consideration of Alice, and had even conquered the respect of Rosy. Indeed, so far had she triumphed with her younger sister that Rosy was even showing civility and goodwill to Theodore Brower, whose regard for Jane had brought about his social rehabilitation. "I wonder why he never cut his beard to a point before," Rosy said one day; "he looks ever so much better. And I see that he has finally provided himself with calling-cards. Well, if he leaves one behind every time he comes, we shall soon have a fine litter." "He won't, though," said Jane, "except when he calls on you." "Well, he may call on me if he chooses," responded Rosy, with a gracious condescension. "I'm sure he talks very sensibly." "Never fear," retorted Jane; "he isn't competing with the British aristocracy!" Then Rosy would go up-stairs for a bit of pen-and-ink practice--to cover a sheet with such words as these: Lady Rosamund This-or-that; Rosamund, Countess of Thus-and-so; the Honourable Rosamund Such-a-one. She lingered fondly over the baptismal "Rosamund"; what word could match more fitly with a title, or harmonize more completely with the grand old names of the peerage? Once she wrote on the extreme lower corner of the sheet: Mrs. W. F. Bates. "Oh, pshaw!" she exclaimed, and tore the corner off and threw it into the fire. The locomotive had relieved itself, and no noise remained save the jangling of a long line of freight-cars on another track. "Those people who repaired the carriage," resumed Eliza Marshall, now beginning on one of her Dresden figures--"those people who repaired the carriage spoke to your father about--'Melia, shoo that tramp out of the side yard; of _course_ we haven't got anything for him this time of day. They spoke to your father about--" She paused, and began to bestow an exaggerated care upon the figure now under her hands--a dancing-girl of Seville. Jane paused in her own work and waited for the rest. "Well?" she asked, presently.