Phyllis De Laney exclaimed as she sank down in a deep, comfortable chair and looked about at her friends with an expression of frank curiosity on her doll-pretty face. “However, I told Ma Mere that I knew there wasn’t a word of truth in the scandalous gossip, and so I came to hear how it all started that I may be able to contradict it.” Phyllis took a breath and then continued her chatter: “Your maid, Gwen, told my Fanchon, and she said that every servant in your employ had been dismissed with two weeks’ advance pay; and she said a good deal more than that too, which, of course, isn’t true. Just listen to this and then tell me if it isn’t simply scandalous. That maid declared that you girls are going to work, actually work, to earn your own living.”

“I’ll say it’s true!” Roberta put in, grinning with wicked glee. Her good pal, Dick, smiled over at her as he remarked with evident amusement: “You don’t look very miserable about it, Bobs. In fact, quite the contrary, you appear pleased. If the truth were known, I envy you, honestly I do! I’d much rather go to work than go to college. I’m no good at Latin or Greek. If languages are dead, bury them, I say. I’m not a student by nature, so what’s the use pretending; but the pater won’t hear to it. Just because our grandfather left us each a million, we’ve got to dwaddle away our lives spending it. Of course I’m nineteen now, but you wait until I’m twenty-one years old and see what will happen.”

His sister Phyllis lifted her eyebrows ever so slightly and looked her disapproval. “In that time you will have changed your mind,” she remarked. Then turning to her particular friend, she added: “But, Gwen, you aren’t going to work, are you? Pray, what could you do?”

Gwendolyn was in no pleasant frame of mind as her sisters well knew, and her reply was most ungraciously given. Curtly she stated that she did not care to discuss her personal affairs with anyone.

Phyllis flushed and rose at once, saying coldly: “Indeed? Since when have you become so secretive? You always tell me everything you do and so I had no reason to suppose that you would object to my friendly inquiry; but you need have no fear, I shall never again intrude upon your privacy. I will bid you all good afternoon and good-bye, for, of course, since you are going to New York to work, I suppose as clerks in the shops, we will not likely meet again.”

“Aw, I say, Sis, cut it out! What’s the big idea, anyway? A friend is a friend, isn’t he, whether he wears broadcloth or overalls?” Then as his sister continued to sweep out of the room, the 

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