Set in Silver

								

are on the subject of gratitude--your "favourite virtue," as you used to
write in old-fashioned "Confession Albums" of provincial American
friends when I was a child.
If people do anything nice for you, you run your little high-heeled
shoes into holes to do something even nicer for them. If you're invited
out to tea, you ask your hostess to lunch or dinner, in return: that
sort of thing invariably; and you've brought me up with the same bee in
my bonnet. So what will your telegram be?
Whatever you say, you may count on a meek "Amen, so be it," from
Your most admiring subject,
Audrie.
P. S.--Of course, it isn't as if this man were an ordinary, nice,
inoffensive human man, is it? I do think that almost any treatment is
too good for such a cold-blooded, supercilious old Dragon. And you
needn't reprove me for "calling names." With singular justice Providence
has ticketed him as appropriately as his worst enemy would have dared to
do. They have such weird names in Cornwall, don't they?--and it seems
he's a Cornishman. Until lately he was plain Mister, now he's Sir Lionel
Pendragon. Somebody has been weak enough to die and leave him a title,
and also an estate (though not in Cornwall) which he's returning to
England in greedy haste to pounce upon. So characteristic, after living
away all these years; though Madame de Maluet has tried to make Ellaline
believe he's coming back to settle down because of a letter she wrote,
reminding him respectfully that after nineteen it's almost indecent for
a girl to be kept at school.
Don't fear, however, if your telegram casts me to the Dragon, that I shall
be in danger of getting eaten up. His Dragonship, among other stodgy
defects, has that of eminent, well-nigh repulsive, respectability. He is
as respectable as a ramrod or a poker, and very elderly, Ellaline says.
From the way she talks about him he must be getting on for a hundred,
and he is provided with a widowed sister, a Mrs. Norton, whom he has dug
up from some place in the country to act as chaperon for his ward. All
other women he is supposed to detest, and would, if necessary, beat them
off with a stick.

II
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER

Rue Chapeau de Marie Antoinette,
Versailles,
July 5th
My Spartan Angel: Now the telegram's come, I feel as if I'd
known all along what your decision would be.
I'm glad you were extravagant enough to add "Writing," for to-morrow
morning I shall know by exactly what mental processes you decided. Also,
I'm glad (I think I'm glad) that the word is "Yes."
It's afternoon now; just twenty-four hours since I sat here in the same
place (at your desk in the front window, of course), trying my best to
put the situation before you, as a plain, unvarnished tale.
I stuck the bit of blue paper under Ellaline's nose, and she almost had
a fit with joy. If she were bigger and more muscular, she'd have kissed