come out of any other country than France, there was another surprise in
store for her, and it did not long impend.

It was only a little while after this that her grandson-in-law, finding
her on his right and Abram Van Riper on his left--he had served out his
time as a statue in front of the mirror--thought it proper to introduce
to Madam Des Anges his father's old friend, Mr. Van Riper. Mr. Van
Riper bowed as low as his waistcoat would allow, and courteously
observed that the honor then accorded him he had enjoyed earlier in the
evening through the kind offices of Mr. Jacob Dolph, senior.

Madam Des Anges dandled her quizzing-glass as though she meant to put it
up to her eye, and said, in a weary way:

"Mr.--ah--Van Riper must pardon me. I have not the power of remembering
faces that some people appear to have; and my eyes--my eyes are not
strong."

Old Van Riper stared at her, and he turned a turkey-cock purple all over
his face, down to the double chin that hung over his white neckerchief.

"If your ladyship has to buy spectacles," he sputtered, "it needn't be
on my account."

And he stamped off to the sideboard and tried to cool his red-hot rage
with potations of Jamaica rum. There his wife found him. She had drawn
near when she saw him talking with the great Madam Des Anges, and she
had heard, as she stood hard by and smiled unobtrusively, the end of
that brief conversation. Her face, too, was flushed--a more fiery red
than her flame-colored satin dress.

She attacked him in a vehement whisper.

"Van Riper, what are you doing? I'd almost believe you'd had too much
liquor, if I didn't know you hadn't had a drop. Will you ever learn what
gentility is? D'ye want us to live and die like toads in a hole? Here
you are with your ill manners, offending Madam Des Anges, that everybody
knows is the best of the best, and there's an end of all likelihood of
ever seeing her and her folks, and two nieces unmarried and as good
girls as ever was, and such a connection for your son, who hasn't been
out of the house it's now twelve months--except to this very wedding
here, and you've no thought of your family when once you lose that
mighty fine temper of yours, that you're so prodigious proud of; and
where you'll end us, Van Riper, is more than I know, I vow."

But all she could get out of Van Riper was:

"The old harridan! She'll remember my name this year or two to come,
I'll warrant ye!"

* * *