an on together--one round Sybil, the other about
Madeleine.

"Mees Ross," said Count Popoff, leading in a handsome young foreigner,
"I have your permission to present to you my friend Count Orsini,
Secretary of the Italian Legation. Are you at home this afternoon? Count
Orsini sings also."

"We are charmed to see Count Orsini. It is well you came so late, for I
have this moment come in from making Cabinet calls. They were so queer!
I have been crying with laughter for an hour past." "Do you find these
calls amusing?" asked Popoff, gravely and diplomatically. "Indeed I
do! I went with Julia Schneidekoupon, you know, Madeleine; the
Schneidekoupons are descended from all the Kings of Israel, and are
prouder than Solomon in his glory. And when we got into the house of
some dreadful woman from Heaven knows where, imagine my feelings at
overhearing this conversation: 'What may be your family name, ma'am?'
'Schneidekoupon is my name,' replies Julia, very tall and straight.
'Have you any friends whom I should likely know?' 'I think not,' says
Julia, severely. 'Wal! I don't seem to remember of ever having heerd the
name. But I s'pose it's all right. I like to know who calls.' I almost
had hysterics when we got into the street, but Julia could not see the
joke at all."

Count Orsini was not quite sure that he himself saw the joke, so he only
smiled becomingly and showed his teeth. For simple, childlike vanity and
self-consciousness nothing equals an Italian Secretary of Legation at
twenty-five. Yet conscious that the effect of his personal beauty
would perhaps be diminished by permanent silence, he ventured to murmur
presently:

"Do you not find it very strange, this society in America?"

"Society!" laughed Sybil with gay contempt. "There are no snakes in
America, any more than in Norway."

"Snakes, mademoiselle!" repeated Orsini, with the doubtful expression of
one who is not quite certain whether he shall risk walking on thin ice,
and decides to go softly: "Snakes! Indeed they would rather be doves I
would call them."

A kind laugh from Sybil strengthened into conviction his hope that
he had made a joke in this unknown tongue. His face brightened, his
confidence returned; once or twice he softly repeated to himself: "Not
snakes; they would be doves!" But Mrs. Lee's sensitive ear had caught
Sybil's remark, and detected in it a certain tone of condescension which
was not to her taste.

The impassive countenances of the