Miss Modernity

ELIZABETH WHARTON had every inducement to be modern and efficient; she had an active mind, three hundred a year, no responsibilities, a good education, and naturally, as an outcome of all these things, a fairly complete self-assurance. Of course she had not had very much experience, for she was only twenty-three, but she rather despised experience, and she was exceptionally well armed with theories.

Her mother had recently married again and gone to America, and Elizabeth lived with a friend of the same type in rooms, that were fairly cheap and decidedly picturesque, somewhere off the Fulham Road. Elizabeth was studying for the Bar; she had, in fact, only one more examination before her, and she looked on this as an expert rider looks upon the last fence to be leapt before certain victory.