“Happy?” Jim said to his wife one day, when Julia, looking the picture of happiness, had come downstairs to join him for some expedition.

“Happy enough,” Julia said, with her grave smile.  She took the deep wicker chair next his, on the porch, and sat looking down the curve of the drive to the roadway beyond a screen of trees.

“Heavenly afternoon,” she said.  “Just what are we doing?”

“Well, as near as I got it from Greg,” Jim informed her a little uncertainly, “we go first to his place, and then split up into about three cars there; Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Billings will take the eats, Peter will have a whole hamper of cocktails and things, and we go up to the ridge for a sort of English nursery tea, I think.”

“Doing it all ourselves?” Julia suggested, brightening.

“Well, practically.  Although Greg’s cook is going ahead with a couple of maids in the Peters’ car.  They’re going to broil trout or something; anyway, I know Greg has been having fits about seeing that enough plates go, and so on.  I know Paula Billings is taking something frozen—­”

“Oh, Lord, what a fuss and what a mess!” Julia said ungratefully.

“Well, you know how the Peters always do things.  And then, after tea, if this glorious weather holds, we’ll send the maids and the hampers home, and all go on down to Fernand’s.”

“Fernand’s!  Forty miles, Jim?”

“Oh, why not?  If we’re having a good time?”

“Well, I hope Peter Vane and Alan Gregory keep sober, that’s all!” Julia said.  “The ride will be lovely, and it’s a wonderful day.  But Minna Vane always bores me so!”

“Why, you little cat!” Jim laughed, catching her hand as it hung loose over the arm of her chair.

“They’ve no brains,” complained Julia seriously; “they were born doing this sort of thing, they think they like it!  Buying—&
shy;buying--buying—­eating—­dancing—­rushing—­rushing—­rushing!  It’s no life at all!  I’d rather pack a heavy basket, and lug it over a hot hill, and carry water half a mile, when I picnic, instead of rolling a few miles in a motor car, and then sitting on a nice camp-chair, and having a maid to pass me salads and ices and toast and broiled trout!”

“Well, if you would, I wouldn’t!” Jim said good-naturedly.

“I wasn’t born to this,” Julia added thoughtfully; “my life has always been full of real things; perhaps that’s the trouble.  I think of all the things that aren’t going right in the world, and I can’t just turn my back on them, like a child—­I get thinking of poor little clerks whose wives have consumption—­”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Jim protested frowningly, biting the end from his cigar with a clip of firm white teeth.

“It isn’t as if I had never been poor,” Julia pursued uncertainly.  “I know that there are times when a new gown or a paid bill actually would affect a girl’s whole life!  I think of those poor little girls at St. Anne’s—­”