change the laws of art," said Mr. Lyon, rising to
go.

"We shall hope to see you again at our house," my wife said.

"You are very good. I should like it; but my time is running out."

"If you cannot come, you may leave your adieus with Miss Debree, who is
staying some time in the city," my wife said, evidently to Margaret's
annoyance. But she could do no less than give him her city address,
though the information was not accompanied by any invitation in her
manner.

Margaret was to stay some time with two maiden ladies, old friends of
her mother, the Misses Arbuser. The Arbusers were people of consequence
in their day, with a certain social prestige; in fact, the excellent
ladies were two generations removed from successful mercantile life,
which in the remote prospective took on an old-family solidity. Nowhere
else in the city could Margaret have come closer in contact with a
certain phase of New York life in which women are the chief actors--a
phase which may be a transition, and may be only a craze. It is not so
much a condescension of society to literature as it is a discovery that
literature and art, in the persons of those who produce both, may be
sources of amusement, or perhaps, to be just, of the enlargement of
the horizon and the improvement of the mind. The society mind was never
before so hospitable to new ideas and new sensations. Charities, boards
of managers, missions, hospitals, news-rooms, and lodging-houses for the
illiterate and the homeless--these are not sufficient, even with
balls, dancing classes, and teas, for the superfluous energies of
this restless, improving generation; there must be also radical clubs,
reading classes, study classes, ethical, historical, scientific,
literary lectures, the reading of papers by ladies of distinction and
gentlemen of special attainments--an unremitting pursuit of culture and
information. Curiosity is awake. The extreme of social refinement and
a mild Bohemianism almost touch. It passes beyond the affectation of
knowing persons who write books and write for the press, artists in
paint and artists in music. "You cannot be sure in the most exclusive
circle"--it was Carmen Eschelle who said this--"that you will not meet
an author or even a journalist." Not all the women, however, adore
letters or affect enthusiasm at drawing-room lectures; there are some
bright and cynical ones who do not, who write papers themselves, and
have an air of being behind the scenes