lady resisted an almost uncontrollable destre to laugh aloud. "And do you go to the opera?" she said.
"I've been to see some of the things that you went to," confessed the girl. "You've been so good about letting me off."
"Where do you sit?"
"Of course, I have to sit up pretty high, but I always try to get on the side opposite your box. I can't really see much of you, Miss Threnstone, and so I hope you won't think I have been inquisitive or taking liberties, but I could see the gentlemen going in and coming out."
"Mary," said her mistress, "you're perfectly delicious! I don't think you'd have much trouble in talking to those men. I shall really have to take you some day. But no; that would trouble you, probably. You'll have to go alone. I suppose, now, you really listen, and watch the stage."
"Why, of course—yes. Don't you?"
"Well, sometimes, when the men aren't interesting, and they often aren't. By the way, perhaps you know some of the men, too—one can never tell nowadays."
"Oh, no, indeed, Miss Threnstone—you're joking, of course!"
"But you've seen some of them here," persisted Miss Threnstone; "you know them by sight, at any rate. Tell me, what do you think of Mr. Sentinel? This is positively indecent of me! I suppose some ladies do gossip with their maids, and I never thought of myself in that class—but really, you know, this is simply too thrilling!"
"Do you really want me to say, Miss Threnstone?"
"Oh, I'm in for it now," said her mistress. "Yes, please."
"Well—I don't think he has a sense of humor," asserted the girl.
For the first time in months Miss Threnstone shouted with laughter. "Now, where, in heaven's name, did you get that phrase?" she asked, as soon as was possible.
"Why, I read it in the 'Nightin-gale,'" said Mary, not without a puzzled sense of having made a better shot than she had intended.
"Now, Mary, do you mean to say that you have read the 'Nightingale?'" Miss Threnstone said, wiping her eyes. "Why, you're absolutely bewildering. See here! you've been to the opera and listened, a thing I haven't done for years; you could tell by his looks that Mr. Sentinel hadn't a sense of humor, and I was so busy flirting with him that it took me three dinners and a house-party to find it out—and you've read all the books everyone is talking about—you have even read the 'Nightingale' and—quote it! Why, there aren't ten girls in town that have such a record! You ought to be the lady and I the maid."
"Oh, Miss Threnstone," said Mary, laughing too, "the idea! How impossible!"
"Do you mean that I wouldn't be able to make a good maid?"
"Oh, I'm sure you're clever enough to do anything you try, and there's nothing very difficult about being a maid. You only have to not see things and not hear things and not say things and not laugh"
"Why, that's just what I've been doing all the Winter, Mary."
"And keep your temper"
"That's easy; it's never worth while to care."
"And keep on the good side of the butler"
"Really! But I am on the good side of Thompson already."
Miss Threnstone was positively amused; and now, looking for the reason, she saw the climax approaching which her soul loved. It was the mevitable logical conclusion to this train of thought. She and Mary should change places! So now she played with the little sensation, wishing it were practicable to carry out such an amusing drama—that part, rather, which involved Mary; she had no desire for such a violent change in her own environment. Were she to "take up" her own maid it would shock her friends and make a deal of talk, but that didn't matter if Mary
