He
is considered quite an Adonis," observed Keith.

"And I don't think Adonis was a very proper person for a young woman
with children to be dancing with in attire in which only her husband
should see her." She shut her lips grimly. "I know him," she added. "I
know all about them for three generations. One of the misfortunes of age
is that when a person gets as old as I am she knows so much evil about
people. I knew that young man's grandfather when he was a worthy
mechanic. His wife was an uppish hussy who thought herself better than
her husband, and their daughter was a pretty girl with black eyes and
rosy cheeks. They sent her off to school, and after the first year or
two she never came back. She had got above them. Her father told me as
much. The old man cried about it. He said his wife thought it was all
right; that his girl had married a smart young fellow who was a clerk in
a bank; but that if he had a hundred other children he'd never teach
them any more than to read, write, and figure. And to think that her son
should be the Adonis dancing with my cousin Everett Wentworth's
daughter-in-law! Why, my Aunt Wentworth would rise from her grave if
she knew it!"

"Well, times have changed," said Keith, laughing. "You see they are as
good as anybody now."

"Not as good as anybody--you mean as rich as anybody."

"That amounts to about the same thing here, doesn't it?"

"I believe it does, here," said the old lady, with a sniff. "Well," she
said after a pause, "I think I will go back and tell Matilda what I have
seen. And if you are wise you will come with me, too. This is no place
for plain, country-bred people like you and me."

Keith, laughing, said he had an engagement, but he would like to have
the privilege of taking her home, and then he could return.

"With a married woman, I suppose? Yes, I will be bound it is," she added
as Keith nodded. "You see the danger of evil association. I shall write
to your father and tell him that the sooner he gets you out of New York
the better it will be for your morals and your manners. For you are the
only man, except Norman, who has been so provincial as to take notice of
an unknown old woman."

So she went chatting merrily down the stairway to her carriage, making
her observations on whatever she saw with the freshness of a girl.

"Do you think Norman is happy?" she suddenly asked Keith.

"Why--yes; don't you think so? He has everything on earth to make him
happy,