Madame Bo-Peep, Of The Ranches

"AUNT ELLEN," said Octavia, cheerfully, as she threw her black kid gloves carefully at the dignified Persian cat on the window-seat, "I'm a pauper."

"You are so extreme in your statements, Octavia, dear," said Aunt Ellen, mildly, looking up from her paper.

"If you find yourself temporarily in need of some small change for bonbons, you will find my purse in the drawer of the writing desk."

Octavia Beaupree removed her hat and seated herself on a footstool near her aunt's chair, clasping her hands about her knees. Her slim and flexible figure, clad in a modish mourning costume, accommodated itself easily and gracefully to the trying position. Her bright and youthful face, with its pair of sparkling, life-enamoured eyes, tried to compose itself to the seriousness that the occasion seemed to demand.

"You good auntie, it isn't a case of bonbons; it is abject, staring, unpicturesque poverty, with ready-made clothes, gasolined gloves, and probably one o'clock dinners all waiting with the traditional wolf at the door. I've just come from my lawyer, auntie, and, 'Please, ma'am, I ain't got nothink 't all. Flowers, lady? Buttonhole, gentleman? Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor widow?' Do I do it nicely, auntie, or, as a bread-winner accomplishment, were my lessons in elocution entirely wasted?"

"Do be serious, my dear," said Aunt Ellen, letting her paper fall to the floor, "long enough to tell me what you mean. Colonel Beaupree's estate — "

"Colonel Beaupree's estate," interrupted Octavia, emphasizing her words with appropriate dramatic ges- tures, "is of Spanish castellar architecture. Colonel Beaupree's resources are — wind. Colonel Beaupree's stocks are — water. Colonel Beaupree's income is — all in. The statement lacks the legal technicalities to which I have been listening for an hour, but that is what it means when translated."

"Octavia!" Aunt Ellen was now visibly possessed by consternation. "I can hardly believe it. And it was the impression that he was worth a million. And the De Peysters themselves introduced him!"

Octavia rippled out a laugh, and then became properly grave.

"De mortuis nil, auntie — not even the rest of it. The dear old colonel — what a gold brick he was, after all! I paid for my bargain fairly — I'm all here, am I not? — items: eyes, fingers, toes, youth, old family, unques- tionable position in society as called for in the contract no wild-cat stock here." Octavia picked up the morning paper from the floor. "But I'm not going to 'squeal' — isn't that what they call it when you rail at Fortune because you've, lost the game?" She turned the pages of the paper calmly. "'Stock market' — no use for that. 'Society's doings' — that's done. Here is my page — the wish column. A Van Dresser could not be said to 'want' for anything, of course. 'Chamber- maids, cooks, canvassers, stenographers-"