d forget the
malarious past."

"I suppose you went there; the malarious past didn't frighten you away."

"Of course not. I was her right-hand man, and used to help entertain
the people at her Wednesday afternoons. Not only that, but I was
hand-in-glove with Mrs. Smallpage."

"What! the wife of the late furniture dealer on Fifth Avenue?"

"Yes; I didn't know her in New York, but she has a house in Mayfair and
hobnobs with half the peerage. Good looks and money, that's all the
Londoners care for. I heard a countess say that all Americans are alike.
We have no aristocracy, therefore our social distinctions are absurd.
The reception of an American in London depends on whether he is rich
enough to entertain, good looking enough to be attractive, or queer
enough to be amusing."

"I say, Duncan, we are just getting into the slip," said Van Vort,
looking forward, "and you haven't told me yet where you are going, and
what brought you aboard this ferry."

"Why, I met Harry Osgood this morning, just after I landed, and he asked
me out to his place for Sunday. I hate New York on the blessed Sabbath,
so here I am."

"I am bound for the Osgoods, too," answered Van Vort. "I am in luck to
find some one going out. But come on, we must hurry or we sha'n't get
seats in the train."

The ferry-boat brushed violently against the side of the slip, and most
of the passengers, losing their balance, were compelled to grasp each
other unconventionally for support. The engine-room bell clanged
furiously; there were more jars and creakings as the boat scraped past
the great piles and reached her moorings; then the restless van horses
stamped, the chains rattled over the windlasses, and the passengers
crowded forward to the bows. The iron gates were opened, and the living
sea of people flowed rapidly up the incline toward the railway station.
It was the mighty ebbing of the human tide which daily floods the great
city across the river. Could one stand there, watching the weary throng
come forth, and, like the Spanish student of old, find a willing
Asmodaeus at one's elbow, what stories of hopes and disappointments, what
tales of trouble and misery could he not unfold for inspection. Pallid
shop-girls and weary seamstresses were there; grimy laborers with their
tools, tired clerks, toiling mothers with their babes, and pale,
careworn children, early driven to the wheel, with here and there a
face on whom prosperity had set her seal, and per