m she had a right. Madame
de Melcourt would have cried with her, had it not been for the effect of
tears on cosmetics.

"There, there, my pet," she murmured, soothingly. "Didn't you know your
old auntie would come to you? Why didn't you cable? Didn't you know I
was right at the end of the wire. There now, cry all you want to. It'll
do you good. Your old auntie has come to take all your troubles away,
and see you happily married to your Englishman. She's brought your _dot_
in her pocket--same old _dot!_--and everything. There now, cry. There's
nothing like it."

XXII

Madame de Melcourt the chief novelty of American life, for the first few
days at least, lay in the absence of any necessity for striving. To wake
up in the morning into a society not keeping its heart hermetically shut
against her was distinctly a new thing. Not to have to plan or push or
struggle, to take snubs or repay them, to wriggle in where she was not
wanted, or to keep people out where she had wriggled in, was really
amusing. In the wide friendliness by which she found herself surrounded
she had a droll sense of having reached some scholastic paradise painted
by Puvis de Chavannes. She was even seated on a kind of throne, like
Justitia or Sapientia, with all kinds of flattering, welcoming
attentions both from old friends who could remember her when she had
lived as a girl among them and new ones who were eager to take her into
hospitable arms. It was decidedly funny. It was like getting into a
sphere where all the wishes were gratified and there were no more worlds
to conquer. It would pall in the end; in the end she would come to feel
like a gourmet in a heaven where there is no eating, or an Englishman in
some Blessed Isle where there is no sport; but for the moment it
offered that refreshing change which strengthens the spirit for taking
up the more serious things of life again. In any case, it put her into a
good-humor of which the residents at Tory Hill were the first to feel
the effect.

"Il est tres bien, ton Anglais."

Olivia acknowledged this approval with a smile and a blush, as she went
about the drawing-room trying to give it something of its former air.
With the new turn of events it had become necessary to restore the house
to a condition fit for occupancy. Madame de Melcourt had moved into it
with her maid and her man, announcing her intention to remain till she
got ready to depart. Her bearing was that of Napoleon makin