The Press., 1916-08-10
A Theory
 Of Progress
By ETHEL HOLMES

Miss Mary Medford and Miss Gwen dolen Tracy, chums, twenty-two and twenty-three years old respectively both rich in their own right, thought much on the same lines.
 "Gwen," said Miss Medford, "I have an idea that progress is the only means to happiness. We must be constantly going onward and upward. You and are apparently at the end O. our rope and still very young. We have inde pendent fortunes. If we marry Ordi nary men we'll be bored through life. Let US go abroad and each marry 6 title"
 "What kind of titlew
 "A knight, for instance"
 ''Then, I suppose, according to your theory, in time we'd have to divorce the knight and marry baron. From the baron we'd have to rise to an earl then duke, and so on till we got 8 king. But I'm with you"
 The two girls sailed fer Germany where every other respe table man l. a noble-at least Von-but taat was not the kind of nobility they wanted. So they went on into France. Here they found 1t difficult to understand what title was worth. France being a republic, they couldn't see what ad vantage a count or a duke had over a commoner. Besides, the old nobility were all either legitimists or Orleanists
 ,.t ists If the sovereign of either won the government the others would be down and out. Our heroines, being practical American girls, had no use for uncertainties.
 So they went over into England Britain has always been considered the best preserve in the world fol noble game. The law of primogenfture provides for one branch of the family at the expense of the others. But the prizes were correspondingly few. The scions of some of the oldest blueblood ed titles were or had been married to music hall girls, and this further re duced the American girl chan es Though they had brought letters tt families in England and were admit ted socially, neither of them saw any thing worth purchasing. for really that is what their intentions meant After spending several months in Eng land looking over the bargain counters they made up their minds to return te America and take up some fad. GweI said she would prefer dog.
 But what they had been hunting fol all over Europe came to them on tho steamer coming home. They had me a young woman in England whom they had asked to help them in theil quest This lady informed them thai two young noblemen, the Earl of Elm hurst and the Marquis of Bablington were going to America incog. Whether the girls purposely bough. tickets on the same steamer as the nobleman, or vice versa, does not appear. At any rate the four crossed together, and before they had been out twenty-four hours they were as thick as peas in pod.
 The noblemen passed by ordinary names, Elmhurst as MT. Calkins and Bablington being MT. Strynger. They did not tell the girls that they were noblemen incog, and the girls did not tell them that they had been informed concerning them. Calkins froze to Mary; Strynger made up to Gwen. The men both declared that if they ever married they would wish to be mar ried for love. Naturally, after such 6 statement, the girls would have been very foolish to tell them that they knew them to be British peers.
 Of course 1t could not be expected that the two American girls would snare two such men within the few days of a voyage, but they came very near together. The night before they made the nort of New York both cOu