But, my, my!  I am always in trouble.  Tom, my little brother, ran into the room just now, nearly out of breath, and made a little speech which almost gave me a nervous chill:  “Oh, sister Alice!  Won’t you catch it, though?  Aunt Patsey is just in from her meeting of the ’Cruelty to Animals’ Association.  She is in a dreadful way!  She is just talking ma black and blue!  She is giving you ‘Hail Columbia!’ She met Mrs. Par-dell, the manicure, the woman who ma says goes around fixing finger nails for fifty cents, and gives you five dollars’ worth of gossip, sometimes scandal—­to those who like it.  She told Aunt Patsey a long tale about what you had certainly said:  that Aunt Patsey was seven years older than she acknowledged; had been dyeing her hair for years; did not have a real tooth of her own in her head, and was a regular old tyrant here at home, and that all of us were afraid as death of even her thin, old shadow.  Oh, but won’t you catch it, though!  Sis, you had better skip, and pretty quick, too!  I think she’s coming up-stairs now!”

It is awful, but I suppose I must have been telling just such a tale, but to whom I can not, for the life of me, think.  See now, all this comes of telling the family secrets.  That Mrs. Par-dell is a dangerous woman!  I refused flatly to have her make bird-claws out of my finger-nails.  This is her revenge!  I am powerless!  But it was not a slander, it was all the truth; just as true as gospel.  That’s the reason she is in such a rage.  But she is coming; this house won’t hold us both just now, so I am off via back stairs—­to dine with my dear Sophia Gilder, if I don’t find that fraud, Mrs. Babbington Brooks, there ahead of me.  She and Mrs. John Robert G. are inseparable.  The old dragon draws near—­I am gone, leaving behind a smile and a kiss for my ancient female relative.  Ah, Aunt Patsey, not good form, you know, to get angry with people—­even with your niece,

[Illustration:  Miss Alice Wing, (of the Inner Sisterhood.)]

* * * * *

IV

       The Cool Quiet Flirtatious Underglow
       Of a Green Opal.

* * * * *

FLIRTING FOR REVENUE ONLY

I am a Private Corporation.

My capital stock is a pretty face, a clear head, and pleasant manners.

I was incorporated by the “social legislature” four winters ago.  Mamma was the active, successful lobbyist.  My father was the silent, financial lever absolutely necessary for the passage of the bill—­opposition small.

The social Banking-House (our residence), on a fashionable avenue, had been erected years before.  A great mass of brick and mortar—­stone-front of course—­not beautiful, but imposing.  It was left unfurnished—­a portion of it—­until I was ready to start in upon my social career.  That is quite a usual plan with people who are prospectively fashionable.  They do nothing with the drawing-room, library, and reception-room until the daughter of the house is pronounced ready.  The plastering, after a dry of eighteen years, has had plenty of time to settle, and is not apt to crack the costly papers or ruin the elaborate frescoes; and the wood-work no longer in danger of warping or opening too much.