I suppose. The Coppereds, you know. Every
one will call on her for Carey's sake," said Mrs. Culver, sighing.

Every one duly called on Mrs. Carey Coppered, when she returned to
Boston; and although she made her mourning an excuse for declining all
formal engagements, she sent out cards for an "at home" on a Friday in
January. She was a thin, graceful woman, with the blue-black Irish eyes
that are set in with a sooty finger, and an unexpectedly rich, deep
voice. Her quiet, almost diffident manner was obviously accentuated
just now by her recent sorrow; but this did not conceal from her
husband's friends the fact that the second Mrs. Coppered was not of
their world. Everything charming she might be, but to the manner born
she was not. They would not meet her on her own ground, she could not
meet them on theirs. In her own home she listened like a puzzled,
silenced child to the gay chatter that went on about her.

Duncan stood with his father, at his stepmother's side, on her
afternoon at home, prompting her when names or faces confused her,
treating her with a little air of gracious intimacy eminently becoming
and charming under the circumstances. His tact stood between her and
more than one blunder, and it was to be noticed that she relied upon
him even more than upon his father. Carey Coppered, indeed, hitherto
staid and serious, was quite transformed by his joy and pride in her,
and would not have seen a thousand blunders on her part. The consensus
of opinion, among his friends, was that Carey was "really a little
absurd, don't you know?" and that Mrs. Carey was "quite deliciously
odd," and that Duncan was "too wonderful--poor, dear boy!"

Mrs. Coppered would have agreed that her stepson was wonderful, but
with quite a literal meaning. She found him a real cause for
wonder--this poised, handsome, crippled boy of nineteen, with his
tailor, and his tutor, and his groom, and the heavy social
responsibilities that bored him so heartily. With the honesty of a
naturally brilliant mind cultivated by hard experience, and much
solitary reading, she was quite ready to admit that her marriage had
placed her in a new and confusing environment; she wanted only to adapt
herself, to learn the strange laws by which it was controlled. And she
would naturally have turned quite simply to Duncan for help.

But Duncan very gently, very coldly, repelled her. He was
representative of his generation. Things were not LEARNED by the best
pe