person whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they were
helped to.

We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder about
his "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I
believe it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in a
way like that.

It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment.
She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortable
came of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to
"come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every
week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs
out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings of
ancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon or
to tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she is
taking German lessons with Pen Pennington.

It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last it
would only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of getting
left out. "Society is like a coral island after all," says Leslie
Goldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian."

It was a memorable winter to us in many ways,--that last winter of the
nineteenth century's seventh decade.

One day--everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when it
does come, however many days lead up to it--Doctor Ingleside came in
and told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird;
grandfather was not quite well.