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slippery and inclined plane to the unwary guest, who was gradually unseated and deposited on the floor by a sort of glacier action, as a general thing.

“You are a funny girl,” she observed at last, recovering her balance with considerable dignity for the third time, and finally gaining a victory over the sofa by bracing her feet earnestly against a chair. “I suppose you will go quite off your head now over your music.”

“I do long to have something to do again—something real, you know; not this make-believe enjoying-myself-so-much sort of life. I can’t get on by myself in music, somehow. I do such fussy, fiddling sort of things; and the more I fuss and fiddle, the worse they are. Now with a good lead, I can always follow. Perhaps it isn’t a very great sort of talent, but it’s all I have.”

“I don't know—I would rather see you happily married, if you want a lead.”

“That’s easier said than done, Clare. First catch your hare, as we used to say at the Academy, before you boil him down.”

“Don’t be flippant, Alice. It doesn’t become you to be pert. Some noses can stand it, but yours is not the right sort. And it is vexing to see you playing with your own happiness and his too. You know what I mean.”