ed him? Mrs. Hanway-Harley could have shaken the
girl!

Storri read all this in Mrs. Hanway-Harley's face as though it had been
written upon paper. He saw that the mother would be his ally; Mrs.
Hanway-Harley was ready to enlist upon his side. Thereupon, Storri drew
himself together with dignity.

"In my own land, madam," said Storri, conveying the impression of a
limitless deference for Mrs. Hanway-Harley, "it is not permitted that a
gentleman pay his addresses to the daughter until he has her mother's
consent. I adore your daughter--who could help!--but I cannot tell her
unless you approve. And so, madam," with a deepest of bows, "I, who am a
Russian gentleman, come to you."

Mrs. Hanway-Harley was not so sinuously adroit as her brother, Senator
Hanway, but she was capable of every conventional art. If Storri's
declaration stirred her pride, she never showed it; if her soul exulted
at a title in her family and a probable presentation of herself to
royalty, she concealed it. True, she was inclined to tilt her nose a
vulgar bit; but she did not let Storri perceive it, reserving the
nose-tilting for ladies of her acquaintance, when the betrothal of
Dorothy and Storri should be announced. Indeed, her conduct, on the
honorable occasion of Storri's request, could not have been more
graceful nor more guarded. She said that she was honored by Storri's
proposal, and touched by his delicacy in first coming to her. She could
do no more, however, than grant him the permission craved, and secure to
him her best wishes.

"For, much as I love my daughter," explained Mrs. Hanway-Harley,
mounting a maternal pedestal and posing, "I could not think of coercing
her choice. She will marry where she loves." A sigh at this period. "I
can only say that, should she love where you desire, it cannot fail to
engage my full approval."

Storri pressed his lips to Mrs. Hanway-Harley's hand as well as he could
for the interfering crust of diamonds, and said she had made him happy.

"It will be bliss, madam, to call myself your daughter's husband," said
Storri; "but it will be highest honor to find myself your son."

Storri did not tell Mrs. Hanway-Harley of those afternoon calls, and the
blight of Bess to fall upon them with her eternal crops and politics and
populations. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, while she grievously suspected from
Storri's sigh--which little whisper of despair still sounded in her
ears--that he had met reverses, would not voice