“We always talk shop, in some form or other,” said Mrs. March.  “My husband never tires of it.  A good many of the contributors come to us, you know.”

“It must be delightful,” said the girl.  She added as if she ought to excuse herself for neglecting an advantage that might have been hers if she had chosen, “I’m sorry one sees so little of the artistic and literary set.  But New York is such a big place.”

“New York people seem to be very fond of it,” said Mrs. March.  “Those who have always lived there.”

“We haven’t always lived there,” said the girl.  “But I think one has a good time there—­the best time a girl can have.  It’s all very well coming over for the summer; one has to spend the summer somewhere.  Are you going out for a long time?”

“Only for the summer.  First to Carlsbad.”

“Oh, yes.  I suppose we shall travel about through Germany, and then go to Paris.  We always do; my father is very fond of it.”

“You must know it very well,” said Mrs. March, aimlessly.

“I was born there,—­if that means knowing it.  I lived there—­till I was eleven years old.  We came home after my mother died.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. March.

The girl did not go further into her family history; but by one of those leaps which seem to women as logical as other progressions, she arrived at asking, “Is Mr. Burnamy one of the contributors?”

Mrs. March laughed.  “He is going to be, as soon as his poem is printed.”

“Poem?”

“Yes.  Mr. March thinks it’s very good.”

“I thought he spoke very nicely about ‘The Maiden Knight’.  And he has been very nice to papa.  You know they have the same room.”

“I think Mr. Burnamy told me,” Mrs. March said.

The girl went on.  “He had the lower berth, and he gave it up to papa; he’s done everything but turn himself out of doors.”

“I’m sure he’s been very glad,” Mrs. March ventured on Burnamy’s behalf, but very softly, lest if she breathed upon these budding confidences they should shrink and wither away.

“I always tell papa that there’s no country like America for real unselfishness; and if they’re all like that, in Chicago!” The girl stopped, and added with a laugh, “But I’m always quarrelling with papa about America.”

“We have a daughter living in Chicago,” said Mrs. March, alluringly.

But Miss Triscoe refused the bait, either because she had said all she meant, or because she had said all she would, about Chicago, which Mrs. March felt for the present to be one with Burnamy.  She gave another of her leaps.  “I don’t see why people are so anxious to get it like Europe, at home.  They say that there was a time when there were no chaperons before hoops, you know.”  She looked suggestively at Mrs. March, resting one slim hand on the table, and controlling her skirt with the other, as if she were getting ready to rise at any moment.  “When they used to sit on their steps.”