h. It would have been hard to tell whether
she was reproving the action or the urgence. "Then we shall hope to see
you?"

"Yes, thank you," said Cornelia.

"Do come!" said Charmian, as if she had not yet accepted. "I can't let
it be a whole day and two nights before I see you again!" She put her
arm round Cornelia's waist, as the girl went with them to the outer
door, to open it for them, in her village fashion. In the hall,
Charmian whispered passionately, "Don't you _envy_ them? _Oh_, if I
could live in such a house with you, and with people like that just to
look at!"

"My dear!" said Mrs. Maybough.

"They seem to be engaged," said Cornelia placidly, without sense of
anything wrong in the appearance of the fact.

"Evidently," said Mrs. Maybough.

"I shouldn't care for the engagement," said Charmian. "That would be
rather horrid. But if you were in love, to feel that you needn't hide
it or pretend not to be! That is life! I'm coming here, mamma!"

XVII.

Mrs. Maybough had an apartment in the Mandan Flats, and her windows
looked out over miles of the tinted foliage of the Park, and down
across the avenue into one of the pretty pools which light up its
woodland reaches. The position was superb, and the Mandan was in some
sort worthy of it. The architect had done his best to give unity and
character to its tremendous mass, and he had failed in much less
measure than the architects of such buildings usually do. Cornelia
dismounted into the dirty street in front of it from a shabby
horse-car, and penetrated its dimmed splendors of mosaic pavement and
polished granite pillars and frescoed vaults, with a heart fluttered by
a hall-boy all over buttons, and a janitor in blue and silver livery,
and an elevator-man in like keeping with American ideals. She was
disgusted with herself that she should be so scared, and she was
ashamed of the relief she felt when a servant in plain clothes opened
Mrs. Maybough's door to her; she knew he must be a servant because he
had on a dress-coat and a white tie, and she had heard the Burtons joke
about how they were always taking the waiters for clergymen at first in
Europe, He answered her with subdued respectfulness when she asked for
the ladies, and then he went forward and for the first time in her life
she heard her name called into a drawing-room, as she had read it was
done in England, but never could imagine it. The man held aside the
portiere for her to pass, but be