The Social Secretary. David Graham Phillips

don't know. As nearly as I can make out, they never had a real, natural good time in their lives. They wear the Sunday, go-to-meeting clothes and manners the whole seven days. I'll never get used to it. I can't talk that kind of talk. And if I was just plain and natural, they'd think I was stark crazy."

      "Did you ever try?"

      She lifted her hands in mock-horror. "Mercy, no! Tom—Mr. Burke—warned me."

      I laughed. "Men don't know much about that sort of thing," said I. "A woman might as well let a man tell her how to dress as how to act."

      She colored. "He does," she said, her eyes twinkling. "He was here two winters—this is my first. I've a kind of feeling that he really don't know, but he's positive and—I've had nobody else to talk about it with. I'm a stranger here—not a friend except people who—well, I can guess pretty close to what they say behind my back." She laughed—a great shaking of as much of her as was not held rigid by that tight corset. "Not that I care—I like a joke myself, and I'm a good deal of a joke among these grand folks. Only, I do want to help Tom, and not be a drag." She gave me a sudden, sharp look. "I don't know why I trust you, I'm sure."

      "Because I'm your confidential adviser," said I, "and it's always well to keep nothing from a confidential adviser." The longer I looked and listened, the larger possibilities I saw in her. My enthusiasm was rising.

      She rose and came to me and kissed me. There were tears in her eyes. "I've been so lonesome," she said. "Even Tom don't seem natural any more, away off here in the East. Sometimes I get so homesick that I just can't eat or anything."

      "We're going to have a lot of fun," said I encouragingly—as if she were twenty-four and I fifty, instead of it being the other way. "You'll soon learn the ropes."

      "I'm so glad you use slang," she drawled, back in her chair and comfortably settled. "My, but Tom'll be scandalized. He's made inquiries about you and has made up his mind that whatever you say is right. And I almost believed he knew the trails. I might 'a' known! He's a man, you see, and always was stiff with the ladies. You ought to 'a' seen the letter he wrote proposing to me. You see, I'm kind of fat and always was. Mother used to tease me because I hadn't any beaux except Tom, who wouldn't come to the point. She said: 'Lizzie, you'll never have a man make real love to you.' And she was right. When Tom proposed he wrote very formal-like—not a sentimental word. And when we were married and got better acquainted, I teased him about it, and tried to get him to make love, real book kind of love. But not a word! But he's fond of me—we always have got on fine, and his being no good at love-talk is just one of our jokes."

      It was fine to hear her drawl it out—I knew that she was sure to make a hit, if only I could get her under way, could convince her that it's nice to be natural if you're naturally nice.

      "Tom" came in from the Senate and I soon saw that, though she was a "really" lady, of the only kind that is real—the kind that's born right, he was a made gentleman, and not a very successful job. He was small and thin and dressed with the same absurd stiff care with which he had made her dress. He had a pointed reddish beard and reddish curls, and he used a kind of scent that smelt cheap though it probably wasn't. He was very precise and distant with me—how "Lizzie's" eyes did twinkle as she watched him. I saw that she was "on to" Tom with the quickness with which a shrewd woman always finds out, once she gets the clue.

      "Have you had Miss Talltowers shown her rooms, Mrs. Burke?" he soon inquired.

      "Why, no, pa," replied Mrs. Burke. "I forgot it clear." As she said "pa" he winced and her eyes danced with fun. She went on to me: "You don't mind our calling each other pa and ma before you, do you, Miss Talltowers? We're so used to doing it that, if you minded it and we had to stop, we'd feel as if we had company in the house all the time."

      I didn't dare answer, I was so full of laughter. For "pa" looked as if he were about to sink through the floor. She led me up to my rooms—a beautiful suite on the third floor. "We took the house furnished," she explained as we went, "and I feel as if I was living in a hotel—except that the servants ain't nearly so nice. I do hope you'll help me with them. Tom wanted me to take a housekeeper, but those that applied were such grand ladies that I'd rather 'a' done all my own work than 'a' had any one of them about. Perhaps we could get one now, and you could kind of keep her in check."

      "I think it'd be better to have some one," I replied. "I've had some experience in managing a house." I couldn't help saying it unsteadily—not because I miss our house; no, I'm sure it wasn't that. But I suddenly saw the old library and my father looking up from his book to smile lovingly at me as I struggled with the household accounts. Anyhow, deep down I'm glad he did know so little about business and so much about everything that's fine. I'd rather have my memories of him than any money he could have left me by being less of a father and friend and more of a "practical" man.

      Mrs. Burke looked at me sympathetically—I could see that she longed to say something about my changed fortunes, but refrained through fear of not saying the right thing. I must teach her never to be afraid of that—a born lady with a good heart could never be really tactless. She went to the front door with me, opening it for me herself to the contemptuous amusement of the tall footman. We shook hands and kissed—I usually can't bear to have a woman kiss me, but I'd have felt badly if "ma" Burke hadn't done it.

      When I got back to Rachel's and burst into the drawing-room with a radiant face, I heard a grunt like a groan. It was from Jim in the twilight near Rachel at the tea-table. "I'm going out to service to-morrow," said I to Rachel. "So you're to be rid of your visitor at last."

      "Oh, Gus!" exclaimed Rachel between anger and tears. And Jim looked black and sullen. But I was happy—and am to-night. Happy for the first time in two years. I'm going to do something—and it is something that interests me. I'm going to launch a fine stately ship, a full-rigged four-master in this big-little sea of Washington society. What a sensation I can make with it among the pretty holiday boats!