p of it
once or twice in furtive admiration of her as she sat between him and
the dark portiere, which set her form in relief against the rich
background and made her seem a picture to the fond eyes of her husband.
He reflected that perhaps after all managing church fairs and running
sewing societies was no bad training for a larger social activity.

VI.

PHILLIDA CALLENDER.

"Hilbrough has sent for me," said Millard to Philip Gouverneur, who was
sitting so as to draw his small form into the easy-chair as he smoked by
the open fire in the newspaper room at the Terrapin Club. Millard, who
had never liked tobacco, was pretending to smoke a cigarette because
smoking seemed to him the right thing to do. He had no taste for any
more desperate vice, and tobacco smoke served to take the gloss off a
character which seemed too highly finished for artistic effect.

"Hilbrough"--Charley smiled as he recalled it--"always gets uneasy when
he's talking to me. He takes his foot off the chair and puts it on the
floor. Then he throws himself forward on the table with his elbows
outward, and then he straightens up. He's a jolly kind of man, though,
and a good banker. But his wife--she is the daughter of a Yankee
school-teacher that taught in Brooklyn till he died--is a vigorous
little woman. She hasn't come to New York to live quietly. She's been
head and front of her set in Brooklyn, and the Lord knows what she won't
undertake now that Hilbrough's getting rich very fast. I haven't seen
her yet, but I rather like her in advance. She didn't try to trap me
into an acquaintance, but sent me word that she wanted advice. There's a
woman who knows what she wants, and goes for it with a clear head. But
what can I do for her? She'll be wanting to give a tea or a ball before
she has acquaintances enough. It's awfully ticklish making such people
understand that they must go slow and take what they can get to begin
with."

"Why," said Gouverneur, "you can tell her to take the religious or moral
reform dodge, and invite all the friends of some cause to meet some
distinguished leader of that cause. Bishop Whipple, if she could capture
him, would bring all the Friends of the Red Man, just as Miss Willard or
Mrs. Livermore would fetch the temperance and woman-suffrage people. You
remember the converted Hindu princess they had over here last winter?
Between her rank, and her piety, and her coming from the antipodes, and
her heathen anteced