er history class, recalled the days of Elizabeth, when
a man's importance was gauged by the retinue of servitors and men and
women in waiting. And this is, after all, a better test of wealth than
a mere accumulation of things and cost of decoration; for though men and
women do not cost so much originally as good pictures--that is, good men
and women--everybody knows that it needs more revenue to maintain
them. Though the dinner party was not large, there was to be a dance
afterwards, and for every guest was provided a special attendant.

The dinner was served in the state dining-room, to which Mr. Henderson
had the honor of conducting Margaret. Here prevailed also the same
studied simplicity. The seats were for sixteen. The table went to the
extremity of elegant plainness, no crowding, no confusion of colors
under the soft lights; if there was ostentation anywhere, it was in the
dazzling fineness of the expanse of table-linen, not in the few rare
flowers, or the crystal, or the plate, which was of solid gold, simply
modest. The eye is pleased by this chastity--pure whiteness, the glow of
yellow, the slight touch of sensuous warmth in the rose. The dinner
was in keeping, short, noiselessly served under the eye of the maitre
d'hotel, few courses, few wines; no anxiety on the part of the host and
hostess--perhaps just a little consciousness that everything was simple
and elegant, a little consciousness of the background; but another
generation will remove that.

If to Margaret's country apprehension the conversation was not quite up
to the level of the dinner and the house--what except that of a circle
of wits, who would be out of place there, could be?--the presence of Mr.
Henderson, who devoted himself to her, made the lack unnoticed. The
talk ran, as usual, on the opera, Wagner, a Christmas party at Lenox,
at Tuxedo, somebody's engagement, some lucky hit in the Exchange, the
irritating personalities of the newspapers, the last English season, the
marriage of the Duchess of Bolinbroke, a confidential disclosure of who
would be in the Cabinet and who would have missions, a jocular remark
across the table about a "corner" (it is impossible absolutely here, as
well as at a literary dinner, to sink the shop), the Sunday opening of
galleries--anything to pass the hour, the ladies contributing most of
the vivacity and persiflage.

"I saw you, Mr. Henderson"--it was Mrs. Laflamme raising her voice--"the
other night in a box w