"I am afraid he did, Harriet," Ruth replied.

"Well, I don't care," declared Harriet defiantly. "I will select my own
friends. Charlie Meyers is stupid and ill-bred, but he is good natured,
and I am tired of position and poverty."

"You are no such thing, Harriet," protested Ruth, taking her cousin by
the hand and leading her to a long mirror. "There, look at yourself in
your yellow gown. You look like a queen. Please don't be silly."

"It's clothes that make the woman, Ruth," Harriet replied, kissing Ruth
unexpectedly. "And this yellow gown is just one of the things that
troubles me. Dear me, I am glad the reception is over!"




CHAPTER IV

AT THE CHINESE EMBASSY


"Shall we eat our luncheon with chopsticks to-day?" Mollie Thurston asked
Harriet Hamlin an hour before the "Automobile Girls" and their hostess
were to start for the Chinese Embassy.

Harriet laughed good-humoredly at Mollie's question. "You absurd child,
don't you know the Chinese minister is one of the most cultivated men in
Washington! When he is in America he does what the Americans do. But his
wife, Lady Tu, is delightfully Chinese. She paints her face in the