fashion, might have diverted her before she had met Tony, now almost unduly exhausted her slight amount of patience. There were kettle-drums and euchre-parties, more lap-suppers, picnics in the cool, wooded groves which surrounded the town, and boating-excursions on the river, which the younger set attended, the men, in bright, striped blazers, playing mandolins and singing My darling Clementine on The Spanish Cavalier or My Bonnie lies over the ocean. This last song seemed to have a direct bearing on her own case and always started the tears to her readily welling eyes. She had been taken to the trotting-races, to a baseball game, to a church sociable where the tables were heavy with steaming chicken-pies and juicy strawberry short-cakes. She had played croquet.
One matter completely puzzled her. She had asked, implored would be a more accurate word, Lennie Colman, the only person she had met who had interested her, to call, and Miss Colman had not called. Every time the Countess returned to the house she scanned anxiously the pile of cards on the silver card-receiver in the hall, but as yet she had never found Lennie's card there. Nor had she met Lennie at the various entertainments, smaller and more exclusive than that arranged by her sister, which had been given in her honour. Was it possible the Countess wondered, that the school-teacher was never invited? A discreet query or two removed doubt on this subject. Lennie was
