ovidence to assume the
charge of Lily. In the first place she was alone, and it would be
charming for her to have a young companion. Then she sometimes travelled,
and Lily's familiarity with foreign customs--deplored as a misfortune by
her more conservative relatives--would at least enable her to act as a
kind of courier. But as a matter of fact Mrs. Peniston had not been
affected by these considerations. She had taken the girl simply because
no one else would have her, and because she had the kind of moral
MAUVAISE HONTE which makes the public display of selfishness difficult,
though it does not interfere with its private indulgence. It would have
been impossible for Mrs. Peniston to be heroic on a desert island, but
with the eyes of her little world upon her she took a certain pleasure in
her act.

She reaped the reward to which disinterestedness is entitled, and found
an agreeable companion in her niece. She had expected to find Lily
headstrong, critical and "foreign"--for even Mrs. Peniston, though she
occasionally went abroad, had the family dread of foreignness--but the
girl showed a pliancy, which, to a more penetrating mind than her aunt's,
might have been less reassuring than the open selfishness of youth.
Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable
substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

Mrs. Peniston, however, did not suffer from her niece's adaptability.
Lily had no intention of taking advantage of her aunt's good nature. She
was in truth grateful for the refuge offered her: Mrs. Peniston's opulent
interior was at least not externally dingy. But dinginess is a quality
which assumes all manner of disguises; and Lily soon found that it was as
latent in the expensive routine of her aunt's life as in the makeshift
existence of a continental pension.

Mrs. Peniston was one of the episodical persons who form the padding of
life. It was impossible to believe that she had herself ever been a focus
of activities. The most vivid thing about her was the fact that her
grandmother had been a Van Alstyne. This connection with the well-fed and
industrious stock of early New York revealed itself in the glacial
neatness of Mrs. Peniston's drawing-room and in the excellence of her
cuisine. She belonged to the class of old New Yorkers who have always
lived well, dressed expensively, and done little else; and to these
inherited obligations Mrs. Peniston faithfully conformed. She had al