dear," at which
Mrs. Cottle shot a swift glance towards my mother; and before that
incident could have been forgotten, Hasluck, when no one was
looking, pinched her elbow, which would not have mattered had not the
unexpectedness of it drawn from her an involuntary "augh," upon which,
for the reputation of the house, and the dinner being then towards
its end; my mother deemed it better to take the whole company into
her confidence. Naturally the story gained for Barbara still greater
admiration, so that when with the dessert, discarding the apron but
still wearing the dainty cap, which showed wisdom, she and the footman
took their places among the guests, she was even more than before the
centre of attention and remark.

"It was very nice of you," said Mrs. Cottle, thus completing the circle
of compliments, "and, as I always tell my girls, that is better than
being beautiful."

"Kind hearts," added Dr. Florret, summing up the case, "are more than
coronets." Dr. Florret had ever ready for the occasion the correct
quotation, but from him, somehow, it never irritated; rather it fell
upon the ear as a necessary rounding and completing of the theme; like
the Amen in church.

Only to my aunt would further observations have occurred.

"When I was a girl," said my aunt, breaking suddenly upon the passing
silence, "I used to look into the glass and say to myself: 'Fanny,
you've got to be amiable,' and I was amiable," added my aunt,
challenging contradiction with a look; "nobody can say that I wasn't,
for years."

"It didn't pay?" suggested Hasluck.

"It attracted," replied my aunt, "no attention whatever."

Hasluck had changed places with my mother, and having after many
experiments learned the correct pitch for conversation with old
Teidelmann, talked with him as much aside as the circumstances of the
case would permit. Hasluck never wasted time on anything else than
business. It was in his opera box on the first night of Verdi's Aida (I
am speaking of course of days then to come) that he arranged the details
of his celebrated deal in guano; and even his very religion, so I have
been told and can believe, he varied to suit the enterprise of the
moment, once during the protracted preliminaries of a cocoa scheme
becoming converted to Quakerism.

But for the most of us interest lay in a discussion between Washburn and
Florret concerning the superior advantages attaching to residence in the
East End.

As a rule, incorre