bad deed she had ever done, or what good deed. She simply
lived by her wits, and perhaps by some want of that article in her
male friends. Her house was a sort of gentlemanly clubhouse, where the
presence of two women offered a shade less restraint than if there had
been men alone. She was amiable and unscrupulous, went regularly to
church, and needed only money to be the most respectable and fastidious
of women. It was always rather a mystery who paid for her charming
little dinners; indeed, several things in her demeanor were
questionable, but as the questions were never answered, no harm was
done, and everybody invited her because everybody else did. Had she
committed some graceful forgery tomorrow, or some mild murder the next
day, nobody would have been surprised, and all her intimate friends
would have said it was what they had always expected.

Meantime the entertainment went on.

"I shall not have scalloped oysters in heaven," lamented Kate, as she
finished with healthy appetite her first instalment.

"Are you sure you shall not?" said the sympathetic Hope, who would have
eagerly followed Kate into Paradise with a supply of whatever she liked
best.

"I suppose you will, darling," responded Kate, "but what will you care?
It seems hard that those who are bad enough to long for them should not
be good enough to earn them."

At this moment Blanche Ingleside and her train swept into the
supper-room; the girls cleared a passage, their attendant youths
collected chairs. Blanche tilted hers slightly against a wall, professed
utter exhaustion, and demanded a fresh bottle of champagne in a voice
that showed no signs of weakness. Presently a sheepish youth drew near
the noisy circle.

"Here comes that Talbot van Alsted," said Blanche, bursting at last into
a loud whisper. "What a goose he is, to be sure! Dear baby, it promised
its mother it wouldn't drink wine for two months. Let's all drink with
him. Talbot, my boy, just in time! Fill your glass. Stosst an!"

And Blanche and her attendant spirits in white muslin thronged around
the weak boy, saw him charged with the three glasses that were all his
head could stand, and sent him reeling home to his mother. Then they
looked round for fresh worlds to conquer.

"There are the Maxwells!" said Miss Ingleside, without lowering
her voice. "Who is that party in the high-necked dress? Is she the
schoolmistress? Why do they have such people here? Society is getting so
comm