ies were whispered, the Americans there forgave her all, for her
grief and sorrow were so overpoweringly evident that it would have
seemed a crime to doubt her tender love for the departed. After having
the body embalmed, she embarked with her dead love for America, and
to-day his ashes rest in that mighty city of the dead, Greenwood, under
a Greek cross of white marble, bearing the date of birth and death. I
went to see it last Easter week. The grave was strewn with flowers, and
the pedestal bears this inscription:

"Too good for this world,
The angels bore him to heaven,
Leaving his heartbroken wife
To mourn her unspeakable loss."

Unopposed she succeeded to her husband's estate. It was large then;
to-day it has grown to enormous proportions. She is not, but easily
might have been, one of the Four Hundred.

At Saratoga last August I saw her sitting on the balcony of the United
States Hotel--fat, wrinkled, vulgar-looking, covered with diamonds.
Nemesis appears to have postponed her visit to the lady. Her life from
her own standpoint has been a tremendous success. She has been
philosopher enough to appreciate what an immense factor mere eating and
drinking is in the sum of human enjoyment. Born with a cold heart, a
constitution of iron, and the digestion of an ostrich, happily for her
peace of mind she was absolutely without imagination.

[Illustration: "IN MY DREAM I WAS ON A SHORELESS SEA."--Page 286.]

To fill the sum of human happiness (from her own standpoint) she only
required one other thing, a good bank account, and that, she said,
heaven had put in her way, so her life has been filled full of joy, and
of the only sort she cared for or could appreciate. In her early years,
when her passions were strong, lover and paramour followed in rapid
succession. When her blood grew cold she found her delight in the
pleasures of the table, and keeping the same cook, who was an expert,
for twenty years, and exercising freely, 1894 found her at 60 with a
strong pulse, a perfect digestion and a keen enjoyment of sport, racing
in particular, and, on the whole, enjoying life as well as any woman in
the universe, with no regrets, no torturing remorse, but with a serene
faith that when done with this world she--never having done anything
very bad here--will have a pretty good time in the world to come.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO BULLION VAULTS, BANK OF ENGLAND.]

CHAPTER XX.

DETAILS NECESSARY, IF TEDIOUS.