Immediately after dinner, and before I had a chance to tell Evan, Mrs. Jenks-Smith stopped on her way home from a drive, the Whirlpoolers not dining until eight, to ask father if she might take some friends in to see the hospital to-morrow, an appeal having been recently made for new bedding, etc., saying:  “We’re going to have smashing strawberries and roses this year; they’ll come on before the crowd moves along in July, and we might as well shake up a fete for the hospital as anything else, as we’re bound to keep moving.

“Were you up at Vanderveers this afternoon?  Oh, yes, to be sure, I saw you going down hill as I drove in.  Quite a chic affair for a little between-season place like this; but after all, it’s the people, not the place, that make the pace, isn’t it, Miss Dorman?  And a swell New Yorker can leave a wake that’ll show the way anywhere.

“You don’t look happy, though, Mrs. Evan.  The boys ate too much?  No?  Roulette a little too high for you?

“Well, my dear, I half agree with you.  I think things were a little too stiff this afternoon for such youngsters; but Vandy is such a liberal fellow he couldn’t do enough,—­nor tell when to stop,—­actually lugged up half a dozen bags of new silver and dealt it to the kids in handfuls.  Harm?  Why, he didn’t see any, I dare say.  He wasn’t robbing anybody; besides, I’ll bet Monty Bell put him up to it.  I know how you feel, though.  I wouldn’t play for money myself, if I’d young boys; but as I haven’t, it doesn’t matter, and one must be amused.  That’s the way Mrs. Latham jogged poor Carthy off and began the gap with her husband.  Latham gambles on change, of course, but drew the line at his house.  Didn’t know it?  You poor innocent, you’re as bad as Sylvia herself.  Why, yes, they’re as good as divorced, by mutual agreement, though; he’s kept away all of two years.  I expect that they will announce it any time now.

“Won’t let the boys keep the money?  Don’t be silly now and make a fuss; change it to bills and put it on the church plate; that’s what all the really conscientious women always do with their Lenten winnings anyway,—­that is, when they can afford it.

“I’ll allow, though, they didn’t manage the drinks well this afternoon.  The lemonade was for the youngsters, and their spread was in the pergola; the next age had claret cup in the tea house back of the tennis court, and there was also a spread there with champagne cup for the elders.

“Claret cup?  Oh, yes, nowadays you insult a boy over twelve if you offer him lemonade.  But the trouble was, the big boys tumbled to the champagne cup, got hold of a bowl of it, grew excited, and fed the youngsters with the claret stuff, and made a lot of them sick.  Your Richard one of them?  I see,—­I don’t wonder you’re put out, my dear, indeed I don’t.  I should be too, that is, if it mattered; but one person disapproving won’t turn the wheel the other way, it only means to lose your own footing.”  So saying, the Lady of the Bluffs rustled away, promising to call for father in her ’bus in the morning.