The House of a Merchant Prince

XV.

IN TOWN FOR THE WINTER.

UPON their return to town for the winter, the Harveys began to plan their social campaign. They desired that their first season in the new house, and the last of Angelica’s unmarried state, should be one of peculiar brilliancy.

Something had already been done, while at Newport, in the way of talking over the people who were to be invited to dinner, and there had been incidental conferences with Sprowle and his cousin, Sprowle Onderdonk. Those men were all-powerful, socially; it was largely here that the advantage of the Sprowle connection came in. They could put your name down for anything, and there you were, solidly anchored among the elect. Mrs. Harvey, as a Muffett, had substantial claims, of course, but Rodman Harvey had less ; and what with their having been abroad so much, and having been for some time without a house, there was danger, had they been left quite to themselves, not only of their making some mistakes, but even of being annoyingly overlooked. Could the gradations of rank among the prosperous upper class, and the heart-burnings by reason of them, be accurately discerned below, they might serve as a motive to contentment almost equally with that of Christian resignation. The stars are a long way off, and they all shine; but ah, the enormous gaps between them !

Formal conferences were held in the comfortable sitting-room of Mrs. Harvey, for drawing up a programme. Ottilie assisted, in the capacity of amanuensis. She had many readjustments to make in her notes before all was complete. Sprowle took advantage of his opportunities to find out what people of note were going to do, and carefully brought word. “ The Corlears will give two balls, I learn,” he reported: “probably one at Delmonico’s, and one at their own house. The Bourdons will have mostly musicals, private theatricals, and that sort of thing; the Antrams a set of Germans. There will be an unusual crop of ‘coming-out’ parties early in the season, — Mrs. Schinko’s, for her second daughter, leading off about the middle of November. The Vanderlyos will give only dinners, as usual.”

“ Those Vanderlyns have reduced it to an actual science,” Angelica interrupted him to comment. “ Their dinner-giving is their year’s work. They make their preparations one year for what they are going to do the next. They never send out their invitations less than three weeks in advance, so that nobody can have the excuse of a previous engagement. They devote two months in the winter to having dinners three times a week. After that they desist, and do nothing further. They have a superb chef, but I know very well that it is only for the time being, and they get along with a cheaper one afterwards. Vanderlyn has a way of letting you know that everything is done in the house, and that he depends upon no vulgar temporary assistance, — no, indeed. ‘How can an outside person — aw — come into your kitchen or your dining-room, and do anything, ye know ?' he says. ‘ Why, he can’t find a blessed pot or a kettle, ye know,’ ” and Angelica pretended to twist an imaginary moustache.

“ You must look out for the Mondays of the Family Circle Dancing Class,” resumed Sprowle. “ There are to be three during the winter, and one after Lent. The ‘ Patriarchs ’ will give three balls, as usual, on Mondays, too, beginning early in December. The younger swells, the. ‘ Bachelors,’ take Thursdays, and are to have two. Here is a partial list of the dates; I will let you have the rest as soon as possible. Yes, all that will go on just as usual. Of course some new things will be started, too.”

“ The trouble is that as soon as a thing gets well agoing in New York,” said Angelica, “ it begins to run down.”

“ That is so,” said Sprowle. “ You cannot keep it select. All sorts of common persons elbow their way in. You cannot tell how they do it, but the first you know there they are. The only resource for the top swells then is to leave it, and begin something else. There is one novelty on the carpet already, in the shape of a ‘ Ladies’ Ball,’ to be given by a committee of dowagers. Judging by the row they are having over the invitations, and the way black-balling is going on, I should say it would be the exclusive affair of the season. Mamma was a member of the original group, and of course you are all right, you know. We have looked out for that. By the way,” addressing himself to Mrs. Harvey, “ when your name came up, to be added to the list of managers, that young Mrs. Bergen ApZoom — a flighty creature, you know, who has just got back from somewhere, I could not tell you where — had the impudence to say, ‘ Who is Mrs. Rodman Harvey, I should like to know? I don’t believe I ever heard of her.’ ' You may not have heard of her,’ mamma replied, — pretty sharply. I can tell you, — ‘ but I would have you to know that her daughter is shortly to marry my son.’ ” Sprowle finished with a laugh, as if this incident were naturally to be looked upon as something very amusing.

“ Well, I must say ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Harvey, flushing with anger.

“ You use quite your customary tact in telling us that, Austin dear,” Angelica said, with far from an admiring expression. She marked Mrs. Bergen ApZoom in her mind, at the same time, for future consideration, with the vigor with which a Seminole might have cut a notch in a stick. But it was exactly in order to escape forever the possibility of such slights that the match with Sprowle was proposed. Sprowle did not quite understand his offense, and went on in a rather mystified way with his information.

“ I will bring up Van Boskirk from the Club, to see if there is anything I have omitted,” he concluded. “ Van has it all at his fingers’ ends. And you had better have in Scatterthwaite, you know, and just glance over his records a bit, so as not to send out invitations to dead people, and that sort of tiling.”

When the necessary emendations had been made, Ottilie read out, with the proper date affixed to each item, a list of two balls, three four o’clock teas, two “ ladies’ luncheons ” on a large scale, and dinners of from twelve to twenty persons every Thursday, from December till Lent. This was to be the formal hospitality. That of a more intimate sort would be sandwiched between, as fancy might dictate. Their general “day at home” besides was to be Tuesday, after three.

Scatterthwaite was summoned in for any further glimpses of light that he might be able to throw upon the situation. This was a person who united with the functions of a church sexton a discreet supervision of the machinery of society. A wedding, funeral, or reception of the first class was hardly complete without his fostering care, if it were only to distribute the invitations, or watch the alighting of the guests from the carriages. By the confidential communications made him he was sometimes able to forestall, if he would, awkward duplications of dates, and similarity of programmes. However, these can by no means be wholly avoided ; the days of the season being so comparatively few, after all, the range of entertainment so limited, and the number of entertainers so large.

Scatterthwaite also found it convenient, in his sober way, to keep an account of the movements of society, almost beyond the power of any simple private individual actually involved in the whirl. He could supply proper addresses, therefore, prevent the invitation of persons long since deceased, as Sprowle had suggested, and also such as had fallen into poverty or hopeless disgrace. He knew also what families had young sons and daughters now arrived at an age to be taken formal notice of.

Then Clocheville, the new caterer, who was making his way to such favor, — Haricot, spoiled by prosperity, having grown too reprehensibly negligent of late, — was brought before the conclave, and after him Spang, the florist. These two were contracted with to furnish their services and what supplies were necessary at the respective dates, — Haricot only for the grander occasions, Conrad and the resources of the house itself being quite sufficient for the lesser. They carefully noted all in their little books, and departed.

The bulk of Ottilie’s labors resolved itself into the putting in order of her aunt’s book of addresses, — which contained in all probably a thousand names, — and in sending out the invitations from it as occasion demanded. “ Aunt Alida” had no talent for resigning any large part of the burdens of management to others ; and her active-minded, amiable niece was left with plenty of leisure on her hands. She occupied some of it in keeping up her studies. She practiced her music. She associated herself in charitable enterprises, in which some of the quieter people of her new acquaintance were engaged. One was a society for sending poor children to homes in the West, and she managed for her part to secure places for a number in and about Lone Tree. Another was for sewing for the poor, and another a flower mission, which brightened the bedsides of the sick in the hospitals in a charming way.

She found Rodman Harvey inclined to respond freely, at this time, to any demands upon him for such purposes. “ Yes,” said the clerk McKinley — he of the cascade-like brown moustache — to a fellow employee, “ the old man is going it pretty strong on the charity lay, just now. You hardly pick up a paper but you find him presenting a stand of colors, or a barrel of flour, or a silver pitcher, or a set of furniture, to some armory or church fair or other.”

“ Well, the old man’s head is level. He could n’t play a better card for election, possibly,” his companion returned.

These charitable tendencies were by no means shared in by Angelica. “ Ottilie will bring small-pox or some other dreadful thing into the house,” she complained to her mamma. “ She ought to be stopped, if only for Calista’s sake.” Such a concern in Calista’s welfare was the more remarkable since her usual attention to the child was confined to criticising her sharp elbows and shoulder blades, and keeping her at a distance. It was a programme she was hardly likely to vary from unless in the event of Calista’s becoming a beauty. At about this point Ottilie entered the room.

“ One would think, by the way people go on, that the rich had nothing in the world to do but give, give,” Angelica proceeded. “ They are as poor as anybody, if you look at the demands upon them. I expect papa to be begged out of house and home before he gets through. What family in humble circumstances has to keep up an establishment like this, I should like to know,— all these servants, eight horses, an operabox, to give dinners and to dress? I believe there is too much luxury already among the poor. I am half inclined to subscribe to the theory that it is a mistake to do so much for the weak and suffering. It is better that they should die out. There would be fewer people, but those that remained would be good for something. All criminals ought to be shot, to save the expense of their keep; and the pauper sick exposed on islands, as in the good old days of the early Romans.”

Ottilie had heard the self-same doctrine from Bainbridge, in his exaggerated way, without paying it any great heed. “ Oh, he likes to hear himself talk,” she said. “ He is like the man spoken of in the Scriptures, who declared he would not go into the vineyard, but went, while the other one said he would, but did n’t.”

But in her cousin’s mouth the doctrine had a different ring, — almost the tone of cold conviction. The same trait of coldness was visible in her comment on any unusual case of magnanimous effort or self-sacrifice that was incidentally reported. Such unbusiness-like proceedings appeared to excite in her less admiration than contempt. “That is all very well for those who like it,” she said, “ but you would not catch me doing it, for one.” She seemed to value herself the more upon her superior good sense. She prided herself, also, upon an incapacity “ to be taken in.” This was a quality much to her credit, no doubt, and to be highly recommended to others as well. At the same time, considering that she never had been taken in, or suffered any of those disappointments that sometimes sow the habit of suspicion in the originally warm and confiding, a little more of the natural trust and candor of youth might not have been inexcusable.

As to simple pleasures, to contrast her in this particular with Ottilie, she had little conception of them. She valued only those which were complex, artificial, and costly. Her interest in life might be said to be confined to the part of it grown under glass.

She continued her borrowing of small sums. The child Calista, who began to manifest for Ottilie a warm attachment, was observant of this, in her quiet way, and took it upon her to go with the information to her mother. Mrs. Harvey insisted upon repaying the loans from her own pocket, against the protest of Ottilie, who had had no knowledge of what had been done. Angelica personally made no advance towards restitution even now. She received the complaint with an indignant air, made as if Ottilie had brought it herself, and took occasion to show her resentment in quite an offensive manner. An open tiff occurred for the first time. Ottilie worsted her aggressor gallantly and at the same time with a charming dignity, but immediately after broke down, and went crying to her room.

“ I do think it is a pity you two cannot agree,” said her aunt, as if the blame were equal; upon which Ottilie redoubled her sobs, and would have left the house instantly. But the nest moment Mrs. Harvey came after her, dried her tears almost affectionately, and assured her that justice should be done her. The matter came to the ears of the merchant prince himself, and he rather sternly bade his daughter apologize.

“ I told you how it would be, mamma! ” she cried passionately, when she had withdrawn from her father’s presence.

“ You cannot have that kind of people, with their dreadful feelings.” But she apologized to Ottilie, as directed. She made her peace with a certain haughty grace, saying that she had been quite unconscious of giving offense.

Rodman Harvey passed much of his time, when in the house, in a plainly furnished office of his own, which adjoined the library. He had there a safe, some atlases and statistical works, which he consulted when getting ready his addresses to be delivered before the Board of Trade or the Civic Reform Association, and a writing-table, topped with green leather, at which he signed his checks. He retired early, as a rule, and only went out to gayeties where his interests or his dignity were likely to be much enhanced.

If not in his office, or den, of an evening, he was often to be found in the billiard room. His cronies, Hackley and Hastings, came in, as has been said; or his elder son, Selkirk, sometimes joined him in a quiet game. The younger son, Rodman, Jr., also, whose appeals for a latch-key still continued unavailing, was sometimes invited down as a wholesome respite from his studies. This youth secretly scoffed at his father’s game, and yet did not dare to display too openly his own prowess, lest he should be questioned as to how he acquired it. He repined at the necessity of frittering away one’s time in such slow fashion with “ the governor,” when there were all the pleasures he knew of outside going on without him. In consequence of this discontented frame of mind, he was so severe a critic and made so many disputes over the most innocent shots, that he was very far from being an entertaining companion.

Only Hackley and Hastings were the guests when Ottilie was sent down from above-stairs by her aunt, rather late one evening, with a message to her uncle.

“ Ask him, please, for the memorandum I gave him for the upholsterer,” said Mrs. Harvey. “I wish to add to it. Oh, and just say to him quietly, that one of our guests for the Redway dinner tomorrow has disappointed us, and I wish him to find some eligible person to fill the vacancy. Tell him to fix it in his mind, as I shall depend upon him.”

The billiard-players extended the young girl a cordial welcome when she came down among them. Hackley was particularly gallant. He insisted that she should make a shot for him. She did so, with no great alacrity, and the movement showed the inexperienced grace of her youthful figure in a pleasing way.

Mr. Hackley was a short, well-fed, bald man, who at fifty still gave himself airs of merry bachelorhood. In the street he affected a dignified bearing. He carried his head on one side, and a hand behind him, with the palm open outwards. He assumed with Harvey a brusque air, as of a person speaking his mind freely, without fear or favor. But it was to be noticed that his sayings were always of a complimentary sort, and not offensive. He thought it attractive to give to flattery the air of abuse.

Ottilie did not quite like the proximity of his bald head, his large mouth and large teeth. With a quick intuition, too, she distrusted the sincerity of his effusive heartiness.

She did not find in fact that Rodman Harvey chose his intimates with great discrimination. Perhaps this was the truth. In natures of a certain coldness, self-centred, without “ magnetism,” as the saying is, and to whom companionship is not always an absolute necessity, there is a degree of simplicity in these matters. Their friends often choose themselves, and fasten themselves on, instead of being chosen. To both these men Harvey had done considerable favors in a financial way.

Hastings was a tall, large-bearded, non-committal sort of person. He had nothing in particular for him, except, in Ottilie’s eyes, his engaging wife, with whom her friendship still continued. On the other hand, also, he had nothing in particular against him. He was as taciturn as Hackley was talkative. He attended to his game of billiards in a business-like way, making it purely an object in itself. He nodded intelligent acceptance of remarks rather than took the trouble to comment upon them verbally.

Ottilie was obliged to wait a little before securing the opportunity to speak with her uncle apart. Then she was obliged to wait longer, while he sent a servant to find the required memorandum, which had been left on his writingtable. She sat down in one of a number of luxurious cushioned seats affixed along the wall.

The men talked about the mansion, still so new a subject as to be by no means exhausted. “ Come ! ” said Hackley, intentionally giving the air of an impertinence to what was really designed to afford the proprietor of the house an opportunity for a little selfglorification, “ the whole thing cost you, as it stands, Harvey, a good quarter of a million.”

“Worse than that,” replied the merchant prince, smiling. “ There was a quarter of a million for the house and land alone. Probably two hundred thousand more went into the decoration, furnishing, and pictures. You shall have it complete for half a million dollars, as it stands. That leaves me but a bare living profit.”

“ I don’t happen to have the sum with me,” returned Hackley, creating amusement by pretending to feel for his pocket-book. “ In fact, there are often times now when I don’t happen to have a little sum like that about me. What with speculating, manufacturing, and so forth, in these late years,” he continued, “ sometimes making and sometimes losing, I have seen the time, more than once, when a good comfortable cashier’s salary at the Autartic Bank, regularly paid, has looked to me again like a very nice thing. Perhaps none of us old ones of the bank ever bettered ourselves very greatly by leaving it. Here am I, as you see me. There is Burlington, the president. He got himself made general in the civil war, and afterwards minister at a foreign court; but glory will not do to bring up a family of daughters on. He has been unsettled in his affairs, and done little but dangle after office ever since. And there was Gammage, the note-teller, who went to the devil entirely.”

“ It astonishes me, sometimes, I can tell you, to find myself with such a roof over my head, when I recall what the old house of Harvey & Co. has been through,” said the merchant, following this piece of retrospect with one of his own. “ You recollect some of the tough times it has seen, Hackley.”

“ Oh, yes, I recollect,” said Hackley. He wore an evasive expression, and his comments rather led away from than followed up the subject.

“ When I think of it, I could not tell you how we escaped. I could not, really,” persisted Harvey.

Was it imagination on Ottilie’s part, or did Mr. Hackley look at his patron in a singular way, from half-veiled eyes, and then as if in upon himself, introspectively ? It would have been strange indeed, would it not ? if Hackley could have known of any means by which the old house of Harvey & Co. had escaped destruction, which Harvey did not know himself.

Ottilie went up-stairs with the beginning of a vague fear. There had been, then, an Antartic Bank. There was a General Burlington, and there was a Gammage, and this was the Hackley, all as had been specified in the talk of the vagrant McFadd, on that day in Harvey’s Terrace, when the prisoners had escaped.

“ Pshaw ! ” she exclaimed. " What nervousness and folly ! To imagine that if there had been anything all this time, and these people were cognizant of it, it could possibly have waited till now.”

The following afternoon Bainbridge happened in at Rodman Harvey’s store to report upon some collections, of a dubious sort, which had been put into his hands. The account he had to give was favorable.

“ By the way,” said the merchant prince, when the young attorney was taking his departure, " have you anything to do this evening? ”

“ No,” said Bainbridge promptly, foreseeing some further piece of business.

“ Well, then, I wish you would excuse the informality of the invitation, and come up to dinner with us at seven. I am sure you will. We are to have the Hon. Lyman S. Redway. He is in town but for a few days, and we had to catch him when we could.”

Harvey had neglected till now to carry out the instructions sent him by his wife to fill the vacant place. This was a presentable young man, who would do as well as another, and save the trouble of a further search.

“ With great pleasure,” said Bainbridge.

He cursed his hasty admission that he was not engaged, but he could not now withdraw it. After all, perhaps Ottilie would not appear at the dinner. As to the Hon. Lyman S. Redway, he was a distinguished political economist, for whose character and attainments he had the highest respect,—a man well worth seeing.

XVI.

THE MERCHANT PRINCE DINES A POLITICAL ECONOMIST.

RODMAN HARVEY dined, as his principal guest, now a brother merchant, now a magnate of the railroads ; again, a military or naval officer of distinction, or a high functionary of state. Or again, it was one of his dignified foreign correspondents, the French Rigoloboches, or the Folkestone Margates, or some scion of nobility who brought him letters from these to facilitate a tour of this country.

Once he gave a dinner to the great fortunes, among which were included some of those amassed with such fabulous rapidity in California, of these late years. Goldstone, who was present on that occasion, said to a sprightly matron at his left, “ I suppose you will have no eyes at all for me, with only a poor little million.”

Bainbridge entered Mrs. Rodman Harvey’s drawing-room to-day at the hour of seven, as nearly as might be. The hostess received him affably.

“ Where have you been ? ” she said ; and having thus recognized the fact of his previous existence, turned in her bustling way to other guests. She wore precisely that toilette of black satin and diamonds in which her portrait, by

H—, has been seen at the Academy

of Design. Some small groups were sitting or standing about, and the rooms were filled with that murmurous, gently expectant conversation characteristic of the twenty minutes before going in to dinner.

Angelica’s pug Marmion, his neck ornamented with a wide silk bow, to match his mistress’ dinner dress, trotted sedately about. Bainbridge stooped to pat him. The favorite avoided the caress with a blasé air, seeming to say, “ Oh, no. That may be all very well, from strangers, for dogs in general; but in my case there is no necessity of anything of the kind.”

It was quite late when Ottilie appeared. Bainbridge had been wondering much if she would come. He looked around for Kingbolt, but Kingbolt was not there. The younger portion of the company consisted of Sprowle, his cousin Sprowle Onderdonk, Ada Trull, Daisy Goldstone, and a Miss Farley, daughter of an ex-secretary of the navy, who was here with her father and mother. There were also Selkirk Harvey and a Miss Van Voorst of Albany, lately brought to visit in the house for his especial benefit. It began to be feared that a general indifference to the female sex, shown by the son and heir, might extend to the point of his never marrying at all, and thus defeating the ambitious hopes for the perpetuity of the family entertained through him. To contend against this, his mother was in the habit of artfully throwing him as much as possible into the society of young women of a desirable sort and of personal attractions, with the hope of stirring at length his sluggish fancy.

When Bainbridge had identified all, he found that there were present, besides those mentioned, the dowager Mrs. Sprowle; the mayor of the city ; the governor of a neighboring State; Dr. Miltimore, the polished divine ; Dr. Wyburd, who could always be depended upon to give animation even to the most abstruse topics; Mr. Hackley; Blithewood Gwin, the well-known journalist; and Baron Au, the Pomeranian consulgeneral.

The eminent political economist, however, the Hon. Lyman Redway, was long in coming. Pending his arrival, a party was organized, under the host’s own guidance, to explore the cellars and other appurtenances of the house below stairs. “ All that,” claimed Rodman Harvey, “is the department upon which I especially pride myself. Much of it is of my own invention and contrivance.”

It was thought at first that ladies would not go; but the ex-secretary’s daughter, picking up her skirts in a sprightly way, set the example, and others, Ottilie among the number, followed her. Bainbridge remained behind. There was no reason why ladies should not have gone. These lower regions were of a spaciousness and an elegant neatness hardly surpassed by those above. The party, on their return, displayed much enthusiasm at what they had seen. The ex-secretary’s daughter explained to Mr. Sprowle Onderdonk, gesticulating the while with a pair of small, nervous white hands, —

“ The contrivances for hygiene and comfort are something wonderful. The heating apparatus is provided with a self-acting gauge, so that the temperature can never possibly rise above or fall below seventy Fahrenheit. The air for breathing is filtered through cottonwool, or something of that kind, before it comes into the rooms. There is an electric battery connected with the gas, so that a burner lights itself on being turned, and no matches are necessary. And there is an elevator, moved by water-power, so that you never need climb the stairs at all.”

“ I should be afraid it would all blow up, you know,” said the rather blufftalking Sprowle Onderdonk.

The Hon. Lyman Redway now arrived. His title was derived from his having served as a member of Congress. He was a man of line presence. He offered apologies in a most courteous way for having kept the company waiting. Ilis delay had been quite unavoidable. A number of the guests already knew him, some of the graver portion having heard his discourse on the tariff, that day, before the Chamber of Commerce. Those who had not made his acquaintance before were now presented to him, and the signal for dinner was given.

Bainbridge had been speculating, with vague apprehension, as to who his partner would be. Mrs. Harvey resolved it in saying to him, —

“ I am going to ask you to take in my niece, Miss Ottilie Harvey.”

Bainbridge offered his arm to Ottilie, and, exchanging a conventional word or two, they joined the procession, and moved towards the dining-room. Both, having made up their minds to appear particularly at ease, were, on the contrary, particularly uncomfortable.

The long dining-table, around which the guests proceeded to take their places, in high-backed chairs upholstered in tapestry, formed a spot of genial brightness in the rich semi-obscurity of the room. It was lighted by standards of shaded waxen tapers. The illumination fell softly upon a multitude of utensils of gold and silver, fine porcelain, and Venice glass, and upon a cloth of snowy damask, open - worked along its edges with lace patterns, which showed a crimson ground beneath. In the centre, a silver galley, laden with fruits and flowers, floated upon the lake of an oblong mirror, with banks of flowers. The walls around showed a harmonious decoration in paneled tapestries, and a few choice paintings, chiefly portrait and figure subjects in rich dark tones. William Skiff, assisted by Alphonse, moved in and out discreetly with the viands from behind a tall screen. An orchestra of stringed instruments played softly in an adjoining room. Its music, instead of conflicting with the talk, seemed like a low accompaniment to recitative, to bind all its fragments into a certain unity and rhythm.

Ottilie and Bainbridge talked but little. The young man’s manner was distinctly frigid, and the young girl had not the faintest idea of the cause. The intervals of silence between them lengthened. They gazed at the table decorations, and at the other guests, and listened to the conversation around. The governor of the neighboring State, at Ottilie’s right, developed a taste for her society, and also a certain bantering way that might not quite have been expected from one of his dignity.

Baron Au, whose deficiencies in English by no means sufficed to check a tendency to talk a great deal, was heard setting forth his personal habits, from the point of view of hygiene, for the benefit of Ada Trull.

“ I haf learn,” he said, “ your American proverb : ' Times is money.’ I rise myself each morning at seven of clock, take cold bat-z, so cold what I can, and walk myself one hour in z-the streets.”

“ I should think you would rather speak French, Baron,” commented Ada Trull. She was much too captivating, however, to be quarreled with, and she knew it. Her blonde hair over her forehead was more like a cap of polished gold this evening than ever.

Hackley, to the left of Bainbridge, was incidentally discussing with a neighbor the fruitful theme of stocks. Something of what was said came to the ears of Bainbridge, and even fixed itself in his memory.

“I confidently expect,” Mr. Hackley was declaring, " to see Devious Air Line at one hundred and fifty before the season is over. Harvey is president, you know, and everything he touches turns to money. It is in high-priced stocks, after all, and not low, that money is made. If I had the funds, I should hold Devious Air Line for a rise.”

Whether Miss Van Voorst, in front, was aware or not of the altar upon which she was to be sacrificed, she could be seen to pay quite a sweet deference to the apathetic Selkirk at her side. She had a dimple in the cheek nearest him, of which a more impressible person than he might have taken a great deal of account.

“ Do you think her pretty ? ” Ottilie inquired of Cambridge ; for appearances of civility, at least, were to be kept up.

“ Rather,” he answered. “ Hardly so much so as your cousin, or Miss Ada Trull.”

The peculiarity about Miss Van Voorst’s countenance was that the lids of her almond-shaped eyes, not opening quite wide enough, as it seemed, for the full orbs of vision, gave her a quaint, near-sighted look, not unbecoming.

“ It is strange how glasses, or the nearsighted air, rather impress us,” said Ottilie. " Not to be quite able to see is rather distinguished ; but if a person cannot quite hear, or taste, or smell, or has lost an arm or a finger, no merit at all attaches to those infirmities.”

The exploring party to the cellar still continued the topic of their discoveries. The house, indeed, was a subject not easily exhausted. The merchant prince received the compliments paid him upon it modestly. He even pretended that it was but a poor makeshift, a very indifferent affair at best.

“ They turned us out of our house in Union Square,” he said. " They wanted the property for business purposes. We found we could not afford to live upon land worth four thousand dollars a foot. So we had to sell out, and we crept in to a shelter from the weather as we could.”

“ I understand that I am found fault with, in some quarters,” he continued, “ for not having put up a dwelling in a more correct taste. I am aware of the existence of certain fashionable new styles, — ' Queen Anne,’ ' Queen Elizabeth,’ and so on, I believe they call them; but the fact is, that if you wish to dispose of a house of the regular pattern you always have a customer for it, while if it be out of the common you must wait for somebody to come along who is educated up to it. We are in such a transition state, by reason of the rapid growth of the city, that it is but a question of time—and of a short one at that — when any and all of our houses must be torn down, or readjusted into stores as they stand.”

“ If I had the caricaturist’s faculty,” said the Hon. Lyman Redway, “ I should represent private life in New York under the guise of a brown stone mansion, fleeing up Fifth Avenue at the top of its speed, with a rag, tag, and bobtail of shop-fronts, all sorts and sizes, tearing after it in hot pursuit. The hunt began at the Battery, continued up Broadway, and is now nearing the Central Park.”

“ Better tear them down before they tumble down or crumble down, as they seem inclined to do, in this soft brown sandstone so much in use,” pronounced the journalist Blithewood Gwin. " Perhaps you have seen,” addressing himself to Redway, — " and if you have not you should, — a curious antediluvian bird-track that has lately appeared, on the corner-stone of this very mansion itself. For my part, I never look about mo but I see surfaces flaked, sharp corners rounded, and even rotund balusters eaten away to the extent of a good half of their substance.”

“ An inferior quality of stone,” said Dr. Wyburd. “ Mineral substances are contained in it, or the grains are imperfectly consolidated, which admits the absorption of water, and consequent freezing and thawing. I should say — as I have held before — that the impression in question was not altogether a bird-track, however. I ” —

“ Bird-tracks, — that is always such a bad sign,” interrupted Mrs. Harvey, appealing with a little anxious nod to the ex-secretary’s wife. The ex-secretary’s wife returned the nod in a way denoting coincidence of opinion.

“ Bother signs! Why are there never any good ones ? ” exclaimed Angelica.

“ Where, then, is private life going to, being so harassed and pursued ? ” inquired Mr. Redway.

“ Up into the air, probably, on the French plan,” suggested Blithewood Gwin. “ That must be its final refuge, since space is so scanty on this narrow little island. I expect to see, in time, buildings as high as the towers of Cologne Cathedral. Why not, provided they be solid enough, now that we have that beneficent invention, the elevator? An elevator can run up an eighth of a mile as easily as a hundred feet.”

“ Well, it would suit me if private life would seek that refuge at once, and let my place at Fort Washington alone,” grumbled Sprowle Onderdonk. “ In the general chaos now going on there, a new street or boulevard is making directly through the centre of it. The worst of it is, it takes the old house in its course. I am giving a garden party there shortly, the day before they begin pulling it down. It will be quite a historic sort of an occasion. Dr. Wyburd has agreed to write us a poem. I should be glad” — to the guest of the evening— “if you would come. I shall send you a card.”

“ Such a charming old mansion ! ” Mrs. Sprowle took it upon herself to explain further. “It is the Sprowle countryseat, though now in possession of the Onderdonk branch. It was built by the colonial Governor Sprowle, and almost everybody of note, both in the early times and later, has been entertained there.”

“ Still, it is precisely in that high, rocky part of the town, overlooking the river, that the great residences of the future will be built, before the up-inthe-air period, of which we are told, begins,” ventured the mayor. “ They will probably be on a scale of magnificence beyond anything yet reached.”

“Are we to think, then, that it can ever be safe to add greatly to our present style of display ? ” Dr. Miltimore inquired, in his serious way. “ An alarming spirit of socialistic revolt has already appeared, and who shall say to what lengths it may reach ? Communism in a republic, with all our safetyvalves, our opportunities for expansion and legal redress, our equality of rights, which should obviate the need of it, is a more dangerous symptom perhaps than under monarchical governments, where it has a certain excuse in oppression.”

“ I have every confidence in the people,” announced Rodman Harvey.

“ So have I. That is what we say when we are running for office, of course,” said the governor, “ and our friend Gwin can put that in his paper. But, between ourselves, we recollect what we have seen in some of the railroad strikes, for instance. Militia regiments loan their muskets to the rioters, and timid officials fail to take even such steps for repression as they can ; though, to be sure, there is really very little that they can do. Abroad there are great standing armies always ready to put down disturbances. But here, suppose that a really serious fight between capital and labor, or between wealth and poverty, breaks out, — suppose the mob take it into their heads to be offended at the kind of dwelling our host lives in: what is to prevent their bringing it clattering down about his ears ? ”

“ You must let us come and get a crack at them with the Narragansett Gun Club first,” said Sprowle Onderdonk.

“ The side that can pay is all right,” maintained Mr. Hackley. “ Your communists would rather take two dollars a day, any time, to defend property than pull it down on speculation.”

“ Our government, then, our whole system, may need changing,” observed the ex-secretary. “ I am not one of those who believe that the last word has been said, and perfection reached, republic though we are. There is a great deal of clap-trap on the subject. A government should be simply the most efficient police and central business agency for the public ; that is all. In itself it is entitled to no reverence whatever.”

“ I confess, for my part, that I do not easily conceive a more perfect luxury than this,” resumed Dr. Miltimore, gazing about admiringly. “ Perhaps we do not sufficiently appreciate the point to which we have already attained. If our good friend and host will allow me thus to speak of him, I dare say that in personal state as well as in actual power and scope of affairs he far surpasses many or most of those great merchants of the Low Countries and Venice and Tyre and Sidon, over whom history makes such a stir.”

“ Hear! hear ! ” cried several guests in polite accord, clinking knives against their glasses.

This should have been a rather proud moment for Rodman Harvey, to be so described and acclaimed by competent judges. Was there no one at hand, as is said to have been the custom at classic banquets, to whisper, “After all, man is but mortal ” ? Perhaps it is the sage-looking William Skiff, to whom this duty has been confided, as he bends down to his master’s ear. No, it is but to get an omitted direction concerning one of the wines.

The illumination was peculiarly favorable to the complexion of Mrs. Rodman Harvey. By day it began to have a parched look, and to show deep little lines, once soft and mobile, at the corners of her nose and mouth. It was as if Father Time had been so well pleased with them that he had never stopped till he had graven them in. Mrs. Harvey went back a little on the last topic, and turned it her own way.

“Governments?” she said. “Yes, I think so, too. They ought to be changed. I am sure ours is very far from perfect. If something could be done to establish by law the positions that people really have ! I used to reflect upon it in Europe. There were my children, brought up with every luxury and refinement. Why were they not just as worthy of titles as many I saw enjoying them, who had not had half their advantages ? Under the Empire, now— Of course I am not in favor of the Empire ; so much has been said in the papers — Still, it was very pleasant. The Emperor used to walk in the Bois every day, and he quite got to know the children at the school where my daughter Angelica was. They walked there, too. You remember, dear. He used to smile as he went by, and make the little Prince Imperial bow and kiss his hand. It was very charming. Do you not think,” to Redway. “ something should be done to give family its rights ? Do you not think the aristocratic quality something to be made much of? ”

“ I should rule myself out so completely, were I to agree with you, that it will not be safe to do so,” replied the Hon. Lyman Redway. “ I find myself almost sharing certain prejudices based upon the feeling you speak of now; but possibly you do not remember that I began life as a shoemaker. I am my own ancestor.”

He had a habit of speaking in a full manly voice, and his manner was one of entire ease, as if he were making the most agreeable statement in the world.

“ How delightful! ” exclaimed Mrs. Harvey, feigning an enthusiasm which was but scant, in spite of severe effort.

“ He is a bold one to beard the lions, and especially the lionesses, in their den, like that,” said Bainbridge to Ottilie, allowing himself to be stirred to a certain interest by this episode. “ Look at Mrs. Sprowle! Have you ever known her wear a more Roman-nosed, uncompromising expression of disdain ? She believes in the refinement and perfection of types from generation to generation by careful abstinence from any part in the useful work of the world.”

“ How ! You abet scoffing at family, — you who are yourself so ‘ swell ’ ? ” returned Ottilie. “ I have it both from Miss Emily Rawson and Mrs. Ambler.” She ventured to hold up two fingers of each hand curving inwards, in a way she had of denoting the slang word as in quotation marks. It seemed as if the constraint between them were thawing out, and the sun might be going to appear.

“ Our basis for such distinctions is so wretchedly weak,” said Bainbridge. “We descend from our small lawyers, doctors, and store keepers, some of whom have been now and then dressed with a little brief authority as officials. One and all have had to count their pennies, kept but a beggarly servant or two, and had the plow or the mechanic’s bench but a short remove behind them. There is the large, grand way of living of great families abroad, which it seems might beget large and noble ideas, though we see as matter of fact that even that does not necessarily do so. If we had a duke, now, with his two palaces, three castles, four or five ‘halls,’and hunting lodges ad infinitum ; a person whose ancestors had led armies and fleets, and swayed Parliaments, and been as magnificent as himself for five or six hundred years, — that would be something like.”

“ This setting up to be better than one another, for some cause, seems universal, however, and confined to no one class,” said Ottilie.

“ Of course it is. The butcher gives himself airs over the baker and candlestick maker, at one extreme of society ; and no doubt there are emperors who look down with contempt upon vulgar little upstart kings, at the other. It is useless to rail at the trait. We are to go on torturing one another with it, I suppose, till the end of time.”

“ Would you have no distinctions at all, then, — no social aspirations ? ”

“ A legitimate aspiration, I dare say, might be to wish to be considered as good as the best, but no better. That would do away with much heart-burning. Individual merit constitutes the only real basis of distinctions. I should say that an aristocrat, for these days, should have a good mind, good intentions, fine manners, be presentably dressed, and, if possible, healthy and good-looking. He should be courageous, too, — wedded to whatever is beautiful, but not enervated by it, not afraid to march and leave all at any word of command given by higher duty. Redway here, who calls himself his own ancestor, seems to have most of what is necessary just now.”

They were getting on with a certain animation in this matter when Miss Ada Trull chose to lean towards Ottilie, from the other side of the table, with a pose and a beaming smile which might have been pure friendliness, or only for effect upon some masculine admirer near at hand, and say, “ We are talking here of Mr. Onderdonk’s fête. The Baron and I are going up on Mr. Kingbolt’s drag. I hear that you also are to be of our party.”

“ Yes,” returned Ottilie. “ Mr. Kingbolt has been good enough to ask me.”

Bainbridge abruptly cut short a speech he had under way, and withdrew into himself. Ottilie felt the change. Something was distorting their old relations, as they saw themselves grotesquely distorted in the polished utensils before them. There would be no explanation to-night.

The Bloomfield case came up for general discussion, with other interesting topics of the day. It was the old story. Bloomfield, a once reputable person and financial authority, had embezzled trust funds committed to his care, and a number of people, among others the ingenious Mrs. Eglantine, had suffered cruelly by him.

“ It is the strangest thing,” declared Mrs. Harvey. “I would have trusted that man with untold millions.”

“ To be sure you would, madam,” commented Dr. Wyburd. “ That is precisely the sort of person who can do these things. Without our confidence, how could he secure the necessary opportunities ? ”

“ They say he announced, when captured, that it was an inconceivable relief to him when it was all out, though he was coming back to punishment,”said the ex-secretary. “ He declared that nothing that awaited him could equal the torments he had endured for months, in the endeavor to conceal his frauds and redeem his fortune from the vortex of speculation in which it was finally swallowed up.”

“ It shows the amount of comfort there really is in such courses,” said Dr. Miltimore. “ It exhibits, too, the truth of the saying that ' Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’ It appears that he carried around with him, as it were, a cage of his own contriving, more secure than any forged of the stoutest steel. No doubt every instance in which he saw others exposed, while he still escaped, — for the papers abound with these cases every day, — filled him with dread, and was a part of his punishment.”

The guest Hackley seemed to fidget in his chair, and cast furtive glances towards the host.

“ Considering the opportunities afforded in the unlimited necessity for confidence that exists, and considering the way we are all of us being cheated, more or less, in the smaller matters of life,” the governor took occasion to say in a confidential tone to Ottilie, “it may be that there is much more of this Bloomfield business going on than is usually supposed. Possibly, even, it is only the smaller number of transgressors who come to grief, while the majority tide over their infractions of the law, thenperils and difficulties, th'e chances turning in their favor, and are never discovered. Come ! that is a rather good idea. Your uncle, with his large experience of affairs, should know about it. Let us ask him. Ask him,” he said, with a mischievous pretense of egging her on, “ whether commercial life is teeming with instances of dishonesty only temporarily hidden ; whether all of his business associates, if the truth were known, are as bad as Bloomfield, or worse.”

“ I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Ottilie, flushing.

But her neighbor appeared to find this facetious way of putting his question by proxy too good to be abandoned.

“Your niece was asking” — he began ; but his voice was overpowered for the moment by other conversation.

“ Your niece was asking,” lie persisted again, this time securing the attention of Rodman Harvey, “ whether there is an immense amount of fraud in business life, an immense amount of Bloomfieldism, successfully consummated. I shall have to refer her to you. What is your opinion ? The point is, whether all of you august Chamber of Commerce men, to whom our friend Redway has been lecturing to-day on the tariff, are merely first-class peculators, embezzlers, and forgers in disguise, only waiting to be found out.”

Mr. Hackley dropped his dessertspoon with a clatter. It fell upon his plate of handsome Dresden china with a perforated border, and thence to the floor. He stooped hastily for it, not waiting for assistance, and came up with a flushed face, which he mopped with a handkerchief.

“ You know I did not ask that, uncle Rodman,” Ottilie protested, in confusion. Then she fancied she caught the eye of Bainbridge fixed upon her scrutinizingly, and she turned a little pale. Might her protest be construed into an indication that there were reasons why she should not have asked the question, if she had wished? Pshaw! What misunderstandings! What agitations over a nonsensical bit of pleasantry!

But the merchant prince himself was entirely unfluttered, and pronounced his answer with a deliberative calmness. The glance of Hackley might now have been thought, had there been a suspicious observer, to have an admiring character, as if he said, “Well, if you are not a cool hand, I know little about it, — that is all.”

Rodman Harvey’s smile was faint, it is true; but then his smiles were never broad.

“ I am inclined to think,” he said, “ that the greater part of the dishonesty there is comes to light. The community has a certain safeguard in this, in my opinion, that the persons who engage in such courses soon lose their heads under the stress of their un wonted burdens and anxieties, and do not long maintain the needed coolness and sagacity in planning to save them from exposure.”

Presently after this the ladies rose and withdrew, their robes making a crisp rustling over the floor. The gentlemen remained a while, to smoke some choice cigars prepared to the order of Rodman Harvey, — though he himself did not touch tobacco in any form, — and then joined them in a music-room hung with red damask. Here coffee was served, and afterwards cordials in little cups of crystal set in Russian gold filigree. A trio of excellent professional voices had been engaged, and entertained the company for some time with singing.

In the first freedom of the breaking up, Baron Au, with a stretching manner as of relief from the long sitting at table, approached Daisy Gohlstone. “ If you did hear me to blow z-tlie horn when we pass your house on z-the coach, about ten of clock last night ? ” he inquired.

“Oh, was that you?” she answered. “ I thought it was Mr. Rowley or Mr. Kingbolt. They often do that when they come by late.”

Dr. Wyburd, who also was moving about in an easy way, with his hands behind him, caught at the name last spoken.

“ There is a fortunate person, that young Kingbolt,” he said. “ I should like to have his income for a few months.”

“ Is it really so very large ? ” Angelica asked, adding herself to the little group.

“ The Eureka Tool Works are on an enormous scale,” the doctor replied, “ and, I hear, are doing particularly well of late. I have had especial advantages for knowing about that family. The late Colonel Kingbolt died, as you might say, in my arms. A curious thing, — I happened to be at Bridgefield at the time, and the family were good enough to think that my services might possibly be of avail. It was a trifle that killed him, — at least, a matter of small consequence, over which he allowed himself to be agitated in such a way that it proved the immediate cause of his death. He was a particularly excitable man.”

“ Ah, indeed ? ” said Angelica.

“ Somebody had used his name, or that of his company, in the way of a forgery,” went on the speaker, who needed but slight encouragement to be discursive. “ He got news of it from some bank here in New York. It was rather hushed up. There was something mysterious about it. The bank officials would not give him names or particulars, after they heard that the paper they held was not made by him. Their refusal drove him wild. I never heard that there was any particular loss to anybody by the transaction. It might have been an error, a misunderstanding of some kind. At any rate, I never learned more. This is one of the cases where my idea that if you hear the first part of a good story you are likely in time to hear the last has not come true.”

“ But time is not all over, doctor. You may hear yet.”

“ Oh, I dare say, but it is of no consequence. This is rather ancient history I am telling you. Only I sometimes think of it in seeing the son, and remarking a certain resemblance between his father’s character and his own. The circumstance took place just in the last days preceding the outbreak of the war. It came upon the top of the excitements of that eventful time. Kingbolt imagined plots to undermine the great enterprise he had built up. He had the gloomiest forebodings, too, of the state of the country. He feared that the rebellion was to be its disintegration and ruin. It came also upon the top of a period of excesses, ending in something like an attack of apoplexy, which had confined him to his bed. Between ourselves, he was not a man of the most exemplary habits in all respects. He was by fits and starts a hard drinker. No constitution less robust than his could have stood it as long. A fine animal : handsome, full blooded, with strongly-curling hair, a thick neck, muscular arm, and a temper like a Berserker when it was up. A remarkable person in many ways was old Colonel Kingbolt. Not so old, either, since he was cut off at forty-seven, in the prime of his days. He had made his own way from the ranks, — the regular American history.”

“ One gets so tired of the regular American history,” said Angelica aside.

“ He had a remarkable inventive faculty and a naturally fine mind, that would have commanded respect anywhere. He had the good taste to marry an amiable and refined lady, who no doubt kept him somewhat in check. Now, to show you what he accomplished entirely by his own exertions ” —

The doctor went into some details of the extent of the Kingbolt manufacturing property at Kingboltsville, Connecticut. Bainbridge inadvertently became aware of the subject of the exposition. He remarked Ottilie among the listeners. With that time-honored fatuity which induces lovers to drag obstacles into their own way, with both hands, and plant them there, he chose to represent to himself that she was drinking in with rapture the account of the riches of her new suitor, or betrothed, or — whether betrothed as yet or not — the person at whom she was playing off her arts and graces for a matrimonial purpose in the most shameless fashion. He seized an opportunity to take his leave of the hostess, and departed.

Bainbridge walked up the Avenue a long way in the dark, then down again, and turned into Broadway. The theatres were letting out. He saw young husbands, as he fancied them, with young wives clinging to their arms, and looking contentedly up in their faces as the pairs trudged away homewards in pleasant gossip about the play. He entered a car. The only other occupants of it were a modish young couple with a sleepy child between them. They had come, he judged, from spending a day with relatives in the country. They expressed themselves as glad to get home. They did not talk much. The child between them was a large girl, charming in the abandon of her sleepiness. Her long legs in floss-embroidered stockings dangled to the floor, and she held a hand of each parent. How sweet it was, that ideal of domestic happiness ! Was he a pariah, then, that it was never for him ?

On returning to his chamber, he sat late, pretending to read, but in reality giving way to the bitterness of his thoughts. The assumed mercenariness of woman has been a staple complaint of lovers, and will be to the end of time. In the still small hours, on looking out of his window, he observed a great fire in progress at a distance. Serpent-like flames came out from behind looming profiles of mansard roof and chimneystack, and licked the black sky. It was the furniture factory of Hackley & Valentine that was being consumed. The distance was too remote for any of the uproar of the conflagration to come to his ears. It burned a while in silence, as if quite uninterfered with. The red brick walls in the interior of the city block upon which he looked took a ruddy glow, and every object was brought out with a vivid distinctness, down to the clothes upon the lines.

By degrees the actual flames abated. It was evident that deluging streams of water were being poured in upon and conflicting with them. The sky darkened. The distinct small objects which had come out so sharply retired again into their obscurity. Then, upon the darkened sky, showers of scintillating sparks, startled from the embers by the streams of water, began to appear and float gently along, wafted by the wind. It was as if the destroyed property had been transmuted — only into a value a million times greater — into celestial gold pieces. Or it was a pretty realization of the fable of Jupiter searching for Danaë.

“That is right,” cried Bainbridge, humoring himself in this conceit; “ that is right. To the northward! To the corner of West Blank Street and the Avenue! She is there. Danaë is there.”

William Henry Bishop.