rty in
the country, and soon a hostel of goodly size. The travelers entered and
demanded banquet; and while they masticated the underdone and tendonous
Chanticleer, quaffed deeply of the amber vintage of the previous
visions. Again you saw morning couches, where lovely woman tore her
Valenciennes night-cap in agonies of headache, and where her ruder
partner filled the air with cries for 'soda-water!'

Engaged with these enchanting dreams, the butler made a false step, and
the precious package, falling to the floor, was instantly shattered. The
fluid trickled away in rivulets, but the ascending odors made amends for
the untimely loss, and you felt that it might all be for the best, and
haply a bill for medical attendance avoided. But the butler brooded over
the scene of the calamity in hopeless despair; and you perceived that it
would be necessary for him deeply to infringe upon his master's stores
of cordial before his former serenity might be regained.

It was now after eleven, and Roseton's carriage waited. He entered,
simply saying to the footman who lifted him in, 'To Mundus;' and shortly
the vehicle stopped before the most palatial mansion in the entire
extent of the Fifth Avenue.

I pause a moment before I attempt the portraiture of the young wife of
Mundus. Her shadow has indeed flitted once before across these pages
(see Chapter Four of the Novel), but the dim outlines of a shadow may be
traced by a hand that is powerless to paint the living, breathing
figure. The boudoir where she sat was draped with the fairest pinks of
the Saxony loom, and the carpet confessed an original Axminster
workmanship. With this one, the pattern was created and extinguished,
and, though it cost Mundus five thousand dollars, he drew his check for
the bill with a smile. The sofas and chairs were of hand-embroidered
velvet, representing the delicate adventures of Wilhelm Meister; and the
paintings that profusely lined the walls gave form to the warmest scenes
of Farquahar's 'gayest' comedies. Bella herself sat near a window,
negligently posed, reading the 'Journal of a Summer in the Country,'
over which she had now hung for three hours in speechless admiration,
breakfastless, and with her slipper-ribbons not yet tied. 'I _must_ see
what becomes of Wigwag,' she replied to Mundus, as he called through the
door that he was eating all the eggs. 'Thank Heaven,' she finally
exclaimed, as he went down into the smoking room, 'that's the last