or everybody; then all the family went to Europe in
photographs, and with some reluctance came back to America for bed.

II. PLACE AUX DAMES!

IN every town there is one young maiden who is the universal favorite,
who belongs to all sets and is made an exception to all family feuds,
who is the confidante of all girls and the adopted sister of all young
men, up to the time when they respectively offer themselves to her, and
again after they are rejected. This post was filled in Oldport, in those
days, by my cousin Kate.

Born into the world with many other gifts, this last and least definable
gift of popularity was added to complete them all. Nobody criticised
her, nobody was jealous of her, her very rivals lent her their new music
and their lovers; and her own discarded wooers always sought her to be a
bridesmaid when they married somebody else.

She was one of those persons who seem to have come into the world
well-dressed. There was an atmosphere of elegance around her, like a
costume; every attitude implied a presence-chamber or a ball-room. The
girls complained that in private theatricals no combination of disguises
could reduce Kate to the ranks, nor give her the "make-up" of a
waiting-maid. Yet as her father was a New York merchant of the
precarious or spasmodic description, she had been used from childhood
to the wildest fluctuations of wardrobe;--a year of Paris dresses,--then
another year spent in making over ancient finery, that never looked like
either finery or antiquity when it came from her magic hands. Without
a particle of vanity or fear, secure in health and good-nature and
invariable prettiness, she cared little whether the appointed means of
grace were ancient silk or modern muslin. In her periods of poverty,
she made no secret of the necessary devices; the other girls, of course,
guessed them, but her lovers never did, because she always told them.
There was one particular tarlatan dress of hers which was a sort of
local institution. It was known to all her companions, like the State
House. There was a report that she had first worn it at her christening;
the report originated with herself. The young men knew that she was
going to the party if she could turn that pink tarlatan once more; but
they had only the vaguest impression what a tarlatan was, and cared
little on which side it was worn, so long as Kate was inside.

During these epochs of privation her life, in respect to dress, was a