I liked her from the first, and if her small and earlies were said to be so called because they were timed by the small and early numerals on the clock dial, and if her little bridge games kept in active circulation a goodly share of our country's legal tender, those things are not crimes. I lived in one of the polite sections of New York City, up among the East Sixties, and at the insistence of my sister and aunt, who lived with me, our home was near enough the great boulevard to be designated by that enviable phrase, Just off Fifth Avenue. We were on the north side of the street, and, nearer to the Avenue, on the south side, was the home of Vicky Van.