ng them in golden
syrup. "If I'd only been as prudent at your age May would have been
dancing at the Assemblies now, instead of spending her winters in a
wilderness with an old invalid."

"Oh, but I love it here, Papa; you know I do. If only Newland could
stay I should like it a thousand times better than New York."

"Newland must stay till he has quite thrown off his cold," said Mrs.
Welland indulgently; and the young man laughed, and said he supposed
there was such a thing as one's profession.

He managed, however, after an exchange of telegrams with the firm, to
make his cold last a week; and it shed an ironic light on the situation
to know that Mr. Letterblair's indulgence was partly due to the
satisfactory way in which his brilliant young junior partner had
settled the troublesome matter of the Olenski divorce. Mr. Letterblair
had let Mrs. Welland know that Mr. Archer had "rendered an invaluable
service" to the whole family, and that old Mrs. Manson Mingott had been
particularly pleased; and one day when May had gone for a drive with
her father in the only vehicle the place produced Mrs. Welland took
occasion to touch on a topic which she always avoided in her daughter's
presence.

"I'm afraid Ellen's ideas are not at all like ours. She was barely
eighteen when Medora Manson took her back to Europe--you remember the
excitement when she appeared in black at her coming-out ball? Another
of Medora's fads--really this time it was almost prophetic! That must
have been at least twelve years ago; and since then Ellen has never
been to America. No wonder she is completely Europeanised."

"But European society is not given to divorce: Countess Olenska thought
she would be conforming to American ideas in asking for her freedom."
It was the first time that the young man had pronounced her name since
he had left Skuytercliff, and he felt the colour rise to his cheek.

Mrs. Welland smiled compassionately. "That is just like the
extraordinary things that foreigners invent about us. They think we
dine at two o'clock and countenance divorce! That is why it seems to
me so foolish to entertain them when they come to New York. They
accept our hospitality, and then they go home and repeat the same
stupid stories."

Archer made no comment on this, and Mrs. Welland continued: "But we do
most thoroughly appreciate your persuading Ellen to give up the idea.
Her grandmother and her uncle Lovell could do nothing with her;