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Miss Cornelia Van Gorder, indoreat in New York when New York was a red-roofed Nieuw Amsterdam and Peter Stuyvesant a parvenu, sat propped up in bed in the green roo newspaper Thus seen, with an old soft Paisley shawl tucked in about her thin shoulders and without the stately gray transformation that adorned her on less intimate occasions,--she looked much less formidable and ined who had only felt the bite of her tart wit at such functions as the state Van Gorder dinners Patrician to her finger tips, independent to the roots of her hair, she preserved, at sixty-five, a huard to every side of life, which even the full and crowded years that already lay behind her had not entirely satisfied She was an Age and an Attitude, but she wasdull or losing touch with youth--her face had the delicate strength of a fine cameo and her mild and youthful heart preserved an innocent zest for adventure

Wide travel, social leadership, the world of art and books, a dozen charities, an existence rich with diverse experience--all these she had enjoyed energetically and to the full--but she felt, with ingenious vanity, that there were still sides to her character which even these had not brought to light As a little girl she had hesitated betishing to be a locoineer or a famous bandit--and when she had found, at seven, that the accident of sex would probably debar her from either occupation, she had resolved fiercely that soeneral and the Van Gorder clan in particular that a woerous exploits as a h at erous and ti her an opportunity to prove her hardiness of heart Whenever she thought of this the fact annoyed her extre paper disgustedly Here she was at 65--rich, safe, settled for the suood cook, excellent servants, beautiful gardens and grounds--everything as respectable and comfortable as--as a li and robbing each other, floating over Niagara Falls in barrels, rescuing children froorillas, doing all sorts of exciting things! She could not float over Niagara Falls in a barrel; Lizzie Allen, her faithful old o to Africa to hunt gorillas; Sally Ogden, her sister, would never let her hear the last of it She could not even, as she certainly would if the were a man, try and track down this terrible creature, the Bat!