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Search was made in a distinguished-looking bag, Mrs. Valentin protesting against the trouble, and beseeching Elsie with her eyes to accept one from the little silver box of pastils that was passed across the aisle.

Elsie said she really could not–thanks very much.

The keen, dark eyes surveyed her with the look of a general inspecting raw troops, and Mrs. Valentin felt as depressed as the company officer who has been “working up” the troops. “Won’t you try one, Elsie?” she pleaded.

“I’d rather not, mother,” said Elsie.

She did not repeat her thanks to the great authority, but left her mother to cover her retreat.

“The young girls nowadays do pretty much as they please about eating or not eating,” observed the Eastern matron, in her large, impersonal way. “They can match our theories with quite as good ones of their own.” She smiled again at Elsie, and the overtures on that side ceased.

” I would have eaten any imaginable thing she offered me,” sighed Mrs. Valentin, “but Elsie is so hard to impress. I cannot understand how a girl, a baby, who has never been anywhere or seen anything, can be so fearfully posee. It’s the Valentin blood. It’s the drop of Indian blood away, ‘way back. It’s their impassiveness, but it’s awfully good form–when she grows up to it.”

After this, Mrs. Valentin sat silent for such an unnatural length of time that Elsie roused herself to say something encouraging.

“I shall be all right, mother, after Sacramento. We will take a walk. The fresh air is all I need.”

She was as good as her word. The cup of tea and the twenty minutes’ stroll made such a happy difference that Mrs. Valentin sent a telegram to her husband to say that Elsie’s head was better and that she had forgotten her trunk keys, and would he express them to her at once.

So much refreshed was Elsie that her mother handed her the letters which had come to her share of that morning’s mail. There were four or five of them, addressed in large, girlish hands, and exhibiting the latest and most expensive fads in stationery. Over one of them Elsie gave a shriek of delight, an outburst so unexpected and out of character with her former self that their distinguished fellow travelers involuntarily looked up,–and Mrs. Valentin blushed for her child.

“Oh, mammy, how rich! How just like Gladys! She kept it for a last surprise! Mother, Gladys is going to Mrs. Barrington’s herself.”

The mother’s face fell.

“Indeed!” she said, forcing a tone of pleasure. “Well, it’s a compliment–on both sides. Mrs. Barrington is very particular whom she takes, and the Castants are sparing nothing that money can do for Gladys.”

“Oh, what fun!” cried Elsie, her face transformed. “Poor Gladys! she’ll have a perfectly awful time too, and we can sympathize.”

“Are you expecting to have an ‘awful time,’ Elsie,”–the mother looked aghast,–“and are you going to throw yourself into the arms of Gladys for sympathy? Then let me say, my daughter, that neither Mrs. Barrington nor any one else can do much for your improvement, and all the money we are spending will be thrown away. If you are going East to ally yourself exclusively with Californian girls, to talk California and think California and set yourself against everything that is not Californian, we might just as well take the first train west at Colfax.”

“But am I to be different to Gladys when we meet away from home?” Elsie’s sensitive eyes clouded. Her brows went up.

“Of course not. Gladys is a dear, delightful girl. I’m as fond of her as you are. But you can have Gladys all the rest of your life, I hope. I’m not a snob, dear, but I do think we should recognize the fact that some acquaintances are more improving than others.”

“And cultivate them for the sake of what they can do for us?”