life is. They teach you how the
universe is all one, and the soul is the only reality, and so bodily
things don't matter. If I were a Babist, I believe that I could be
happy, even if I had to work in a cotton-mill."

Then Mrs. Winnie rose up suddenly. "You'd rather look at the pictures,
I know," she said; and she pressed a button, and a soft radiance
flooded the great vaulted gallery.

"This is our chief pride in life," she said. "My husband's object has
been to get one representative work of each of the great painters of
the world. We got their masterpiece whenever we could. Over there in
the corner are the old masters--don't you love to look at them?"

Montague would have liked to look at them very much; but he felt that
he would rather it were some time when he did not have Mrs. Winnie by
his side. Mrs. Winnie must have had to show the gallery quite
frequently; and now her mind was still upon the Persian
transcendentalists.

"That picture of the saint is a Botticelli," she said. "And do you
know, the orange-coloured robe always makes me think of the swami. That
is my teacher, you know--Swami Babubanana. And he has the most
beautiful delicate hands, and great big brown eyes, so soft and
gentle--for all the world like those of the gazelles in our place down
South!"

Thus Mrs. Winnie, as she roamed from picture to picture, while the
souls of the grave old masters looked down upon her in silence.

CHAPTER VI

Montague had now been officially pronounced complete by his tailor; and
Reval had sent home the first of Alice's street gowns, elaborately
plain, but fitting her conspicuously, and costing accordingly. So the
next morning they were ready to be taken to call upon Mrs. Devon.

Of course Montague had heard of the Devons, but he was not sufficiently
initiated to comprehend just what it meant to be asked to call. But
when Oliver came in, a little before noon, and proceeded to examine his
costume and to put him to rights, and insisted that Alice should have
her hair done over, he began to realize that this was a special
occasion. Oliver was in quite a state of excitement; and after they had
left the hotel, and were driving up the Avenue, he explained to them
that their future in Society depended upon the outcome of this visit.
Calling upon Mrs. Devon, it seemed, was the American equivalent to
being presented at court. For twenty-five years this grand lady had
been the undisputed mistress of the Society