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“He was very nice about it,—daddy really seemed relieved,—and—well, it’s all over, though his mother did glower at me at first when I met her on the avenue yesterday, but she decided to bow.”

“Oh, Lucy, why are you so impetuous? When you told me of the engagement, you said—”

“Now listen, Brooke Lawton, and hear me swear one thing: money in one’s pocket is a blessing, but continually dinned into one’s ears it’s the other thing. If ever I marry any one, he must not be in this sickening money business; he must do something different, if it’s only drawing pictures on the sidewalk with chalk held between his toes, like the armless sailor in Union Square, though, come to think of it, I’d rather he’d have arms!

“By the way, why don’t you ’phone your mother to come? It’s going to be an awfully smart party. There’s a ’phone in the writing room or somewhere near—there always is one now at swell functions for the use of guests, and a young man (not a woman—too dangerous) from central to work it; they say the society reporters fight and bribe to get the job, they hear so much ‘inwardness.’ Your mother needn’t worry and stay at home. I don’t think your father’s sick. I heard daddy say last night that he is in another big deal, with trump cards enough to fill both hands, and he’s holding them so close for fear of dropping any that he’s bound to be preoccupied.”