st reward due to the offspring of noble swashbucklers.

In my ascension I closely followed three young ladies and blessed the
fate that had abolished long trains. But for its decree, I should have
been filled with the hot trepidation of the man who knows that he is
apt, at the slightest opportunity, to tread on sweeping flounces, and
who has had his share of furious and transfixing haughty looks. Others
were coming behind me in a stream. The music of fiddles and mandolins
hidden in a bower of palms, on the landing, mingled with a murmur of
many voices. I soon entered a great parlor, through huge doors, and
followed a line of matrons and damsels diversified by a scattering of
the masculine element.

I immediately recognized Mrs. Van Rossum, very resplendent in pearl gray
silk, and her daughter's goodnatured face, very smiling and friendly to
all. Gordon was standing quite near, chatting with some ladies. Mr. Van
Rossum I knew at once, since his countenance has been, many times and
oft, represented in the press among other portraits of enviable men of
wealth. So urbane and mild did he look that I wondered how any one could
hesitate to borrow a million from him. My chance to make my bow came
very soon. The elder lady smiled to me most charmingly, in most evident
and utter forgetfulness of my identity, but Miss Sophia showed an
excellent memory.

"My dear Mr. Cole! How very kind of you to come! Yes, it's a most
charming day. Lucy, dearest, this is Mr. Cole who writes the most
delightful books. You must read them, but he will tell you all about
them."

Swiftly, she turned to others and I was left in the care of the dearest
little lady, just five feet nothing in highest heels, who looked like a
rosebud wrapped in lace, and smiled at me.

"I am going to take you right over there by the window," she said. "I
just dote on people who write books and I remember your name perfectly
well. You are the author of 'The World's Grist' and 'Meg's Temptation.'"

She sat down, with a little sign extending her gracious permission for
me to do likewise, whereupon I hastened to assure her that I made no
claim to the reputation so thoroughly deserved by the authors of those
magnificent novels.

"Then, tell me the names of your books, won't you?"

Somewhat diffidently I acquainted her with a few of the titles,
whereupon she joyfully declared that she remembered one of them
perfectly.

"The heroine was called Rose," she said, triumphan