this charming plutocratic graciousness and beauty
was Margaret--Margaret and her handsome husband. Where did the New
Hampshire boy learn this simple dignity of bearing, this good-humored
cordiality without condescension, this easy air of the man of the world?
Was this the railway wrecker, the insurance manipulator, the familiar
of Uncle Jerry, the king of the lobby, the pride and the bugaboo of
Wall Street? Margaret was regnant. And how charmingly she received her
guests! How well I knew that half-imperious toss of the head, and
the glance of those level, large gray eyes, softened instantly, on
recognition, into the sweetest smile of welcome playing about the dimple
and the expressive mouth! What woman would not feel a little thrill of
triumph? The world was at her feet. Why was it, I wonder, as I stood
there watching the throng which saluted this queenly woman of the world,
in an hour of supreme social triumph, while the notes of the distant
orchestra came softly on the air, and the overpowering perfume of banks
of flowers and tropical plants--why was it that I thought of a fair,
simple girl, stirred with noble ideals, eager for the intellectual life,
tender, sympathetic, courageous? It was Margaret Debree--how often I had
seen her thus!--sitting on her little veranda, swinging her chip hat
by the string, glowing from some errand in which her heart had played
a much more important part than her purse. I caught the odor of the
honeysuckle that climbed on the porch, and I heard the note of the robin
that nested there.

"You seem to be in a brown study," said Carmen, who came up, leaning on
the arm of the Earl of Chisholm.

"I'm lost in admiration. You must make allowance, Miss Eschelle, for a
person from the country."

"Oh, we are all from the country. That is the beauty of it. There is Mr.
Hollowell, used to drive a peddler's cart, or something of that sort, up
in Maine, talking with Mr. Stott, whose father came in on the towpath
of the Erie Canal. You don't dance? The earl has just been giving me a
whirl in the ballroom, and I've been trying to make him understand about
democracy."

"Yes," the earl rejoined; "Miss Eschelle has been interpreting to me
republican simplicity."

"And he cannot point out, Mr. Fairchild, why this is not as good as a
reception at St. James. I suppose it's his politeness."

"Indeed, it is all very charming. It must be a great thing to be the
architect of your own fortune."

"Yes; we a