The whole process of her thought was on her face. She had never been jealous of her husband in all her life before--but then, she had never before brought him face to face with perfection. She summed it up in her first sentence. "Dan is no fool," she said. "He felt as you did?" The princess smiled. "Ah, Charlotte!" she said. "An Italian woman would not have asked that. You must find that out for yourself." There was a short silence, and then Charlotte got up and walked toward the door. It was evident that she was going to find out at once. But the princess had one more salutary blow for her. She was standing now with her elbow on the mantelpiece and her eyes fixed on the little spare-room picture, and just as Charlotte reached the door Lisa spoke. "Oh!" she said. "One other thing. Don't despise this little picture that your husband bought. It's the best thing you have." This was a little too much. "Not better than my Guardis," Charlotte wailed, for she would never think of disputing the princess' judgment. "The Guardis are like you, Charlotte," said the princess; "they are excellent copies. But this little picture is original--it's American--it's the real thing." DEVOTED WOMEN Nan felt a sense of drama as she rang the bell of her friend's house. The houses in the row were all exactly alike, built of a new small dark-red brick, and each was set on a little square of new turf, as smooth and neat as an emerald-green handkerchief. To make matters harder, the house numbers were not honest numerals, but loops of silver ribbon festooned above the front door bell, so that Nan had almost mistaken the five she was looking for for the three next door. She had not seen her friend for four years; and four years is a long time--a sixth of your entire life when you are only twenty-four. It seemed to her that they had been immensely young when they had parted; and yet she had never been too young to appreciate Letitia--even that first day back in the dark ages of childhood when they had found their desks next to each other at school. Even then Letitia had been captivating--lovely to look at, and gay; and, though it seemed a strange word to use about a child in short dresses, elegant. She came of the best blood in America; indeed, in the American-history class it was quite embarrassing because so many of the statesmen and generals whom the teacher praised or condemned were ancestors of Letitia's. She was a red-gold creature with deep sky-blue eyes, and, at that remote period, freckles, which she had subsequently succeeded in getting rid of.