There are times, moments of despondency, more frequent here of late, when something within whispers, “You are waiting too long!  You are, indeed, far above par, but will it last?”

The credit of my Banking-House (social) is apparently without limit.  My pretty face stands well the wear and tear of hard social work.  My worst female enemy dares not call me passe in the slightest degree, although I am a shade beyond the uncertain age of twenty-five.  But surely these strange premonitions must come as a warning.  They surely mean something.  My womanly intuition—­and it can be trusted—­plainly prompts me to give up this dangerous, ruinous policy of

  =Flirting for Revenue Only=.

I must abandon my little formulas of speech and manners.  I must quit making eyes.  I must grant myself a pause in this social farce.  I must try to let myself love the man whom my real honest self hath chosen years ago.  The man I drove from my door for the sake of general revenue.  The man against whom I closed my heart!  But will he come back again?  Will his proud spirit brook an uncertainty?  But, after all, is it well worth, the while?  Those are uncertain questions—­I dismiss them.  There is no immediate danger.  My humor changes; I am no longer despondent.  Away with Doubtful Uncertainty and all of his stale retinue, tricked out in danger-signals—­each a false one.  Sleep on, sweet Conscience, sleep on!  To-night the wedding-reception—­given to a woman married for her money!  Another glorious opportunity for me!

=A.B.= I may be found any time between the hours of nine and one, on the crowded stair, in a nook beneath, in the dancing-room, or—­somewhere about the flower-decked house in my accustomed capacity of Private Corporation, skillfully, successfully

  =Flirting For Revenue Only.=

[Illustration:  Miss Rose Clendennin, (of the Inner Sisterhood.)]

* * * * *

V

       A Symphony in Pink
       With Philistine Traces.

* * * * *

=Mother and Daughter=

We are not on good terms, mamma and I, She is hard, exacting, unreasonable; she is proud, ambitious, worldly; she is deeply embittered against me because I am not a social success, because I am not brilliant, attractive.  Her one thought, by day and by night, has been the promotion of my interests—­from her own selfish standpoint.  I am never consulted—­always ignored, and my feelings trampled upon.  My slightest objection fills her with indignant surprise, and is met with a prompt rebuke and a dictum, from which there is absolutely no appeal.  Always unwilling, yet always obedient—­passively obedient.