“The very everlasting livingness,” said Miss Hapsie.  “We don’t want to see the strings by which the earths and moons are hung up; nor, any more, the threads that hold our little daily possibilities.”

Asenath had other visitors, sometimes, with whom it was not so easy to strike the key-note of things.

Glossy Megilp and her mother had come home from Europe.  They and the Ledwiths were in apartments in one of the great “Babulous” hotels, as Sin called them, with a mingling of idea and etymology.

“Good places enough,” she said, “for the prologue and the epilogue of life; but not for the blessed meanwhile; for the acting of all the dear heart and home parts.”

The two families had managed very well by taking two small “suites” and making a common parlor; thus bestowing themselves in one room less than they could possibly have done apart.  They were very comfortable and content, made economical breakfasts and teas together, dined at the cafe, and had long forenoons in which to run about and look in upon their friends.

Glossy had always “cultivated” Asenath Scherman for though that young dame lived at present a very retired and domestic life, Miss Megilp was quite aware that she might come out, and in precisely the right place, at any minute she chose; and meanwhile it was exceedingly suitable to know her well in this same intimate privilege of domesticity.

Glossy Megilp was very polite; but she did not believe in the new order of things; and her eyelids and the corners of her mouth showed it.  Mrs. Megilp admired; thought it lovely for Asenath just now; but of course not a thing to count upon, or to expect generally.  In short, they treated it all as a whim; a coincidence of whims.  Asenath, although she would not trouble herself about the “ifs away back,” had a spirit of looking forward which impelled her to argue against and clear away prospective ones.

“Bad things have lasted long enough,” she said; “I don’t see why the good ones should not, when once they have begun.”

“They won’t begin; one swallow never makes a summer.  This has happened to you, but it is absolutely exceptional; it will never be pandemic,” said Mrs. Megilp, who was fond of picking up little knowing terms of speech, and delivering herself of them at her earliest subsequent convenience.

“‘Never’ is the only really imposing word in the language,” said Asenath, innocently.  “I don’t believe either you or I quite understand it.  But I fancy everything begins with exceptions, and happens in spots,—­from the settling of a continent to the doing up of back-hair in new fashions.  I shouldn’t wonder if it were an excellent way to take life, to make it as exceptional as you can, in all unexceptionable directions.  To help to thicken up the good spots till the world gets confluent with them.  I suppose that is what is meant by making one’s mark in it, don’t you?”