s gas-jets of the
chandelier shed their lights impartially on ponderously framed canvases
of the Bay of Naples and the Hudson in Autumn, on Carrara busts and
bronze Indians on velvet pedestals.

"All this," murmured Mr. Langhope, "is getting to be as rare as the
giant sequoias. In another fifty years we shall have collectors fighting
for that Bay of Naples."

Bessy Westmore turned from him impatiently. When she felt deeply on any
subject her father's flippancy annoyed her.

"_You_ can see, Maria," she said, seating herself beside the other lady
of the party, "why I couldn't possibly live here."

Mrs. Eustace Ansell, immediately after dinner, had bent her slender back
above the velvet-covered writing-table, where an inkstand of Vienna
ormolu offered its empty cup to her pen. Being habitually charged with a
voluminous correspondence, she had foreseen this contingency and met it
by despatching her maid for her own writing-case, which was now
outspread before her in all its complex neatness; but at Bessy's appeal
she wiped her pen, and turned a sympathetic gaze on her companion.

Mrs. Ansell's face drew all its charm from its adaptability. It was a
different face to each speaker: now kindling with irony, now gently
maternal, now charged with abstract meditation--and few paused to
reflect that, in each case, it was merely the mirror held up to some one
else's view of life.

"It needs doing over," she admitted, following the widow's melancholy
glance about the room. "But you are a spoilt child to complain. Think of
having a house of your own to come to, instead of having to put up at
the Hanaford hotel!"

Mrs. Westmore's attention was arrested by the first part of the reply.

"Doing over? Why in the world should I do it over? No one could expect
me to come here _now_--could they, Mr. Tredegar?" she exclaimed,
transferring her appeal to the fourth member of the party.

Mr. Tredegar, the family lawyer, who had deemed it his duty to accompany
the widow on her visit of inspection, was strolling up and down the room
with short pompous steps, a cigar between his lips, and his arms behind
him. He cocked his sparrow-like head, scanned the offending apartment,
and terminated his survey by resting his eyes on Mrs. Westmore's
charming petulant face.

"It all depends," he replied axiomatically, "how large an income you
require."

Mr. Tredegar uttered this remark with the air of one who pronounces on
an important point in la