?"

"If Monsieur and Mesdames will have the goodness to step into this
room," was the reply of the servant, opening the door of the parlor,
"Madame Boutell will have the honor of receiving them in a few moments."

"Aha!" said Leslie to himself, as they entered the room, the door closed
and the negro-girl disappeared. "Aha! 'Monsieur' and 'Mesdames,' besides
being marvellously correct in her speech and polite enough for a French
dancing master! All this looks more and more suspicious."

"Nothing so very terrible here," remarked Josephine Harris, at once
addressing her attention to some excellent prints, commonly framed,
hanging on the wall. "Some of these pictures are very nice, and as I
could throw away the frames, I should not much mind hooking them if I
had a good opportunity."

"But the piano is shockingly out of tune," remarked Bell, who had
immediately commenced a listless kind of assault on that ill-used
indispensable of all rooms in which people are expected to wait.

"Bell, for conscience sake leave that piano alone! You have nearly
murdered the one at home, and I do not see why you should be the enemy
of the whole race!" was the complimentary reply of Josephine, which
caused Bell, with a little pout on her lip, to leave the piano and
commence tapping the cheap bronzes on the mantel with the end of her
parasol, by way of discovering whether they were metal or plaster.

Just then there were steps in the hall, the outer door opened, and Joe,
running suddenly to the window, was enabled to catch a glimpse through
the blinds, of a gentleman and a lady passing down the steps from the
door and walking hurriedly towards Broadway. The next moment the door
from the hall opened, and the negro girl, stepping within, said:

"Madame Boutell will have the honor to receive Monsieur and Mesdames, if
they will be so good as to ascend the stairs."

"Now for it," said Joe, touching Leslie's arm with a little bit of
shudder, real or affected, and speaking in a tone so low that it seemed
designed only for his ear and flattered that male person's vanity
amazingly. "Now for it!--I have never been anywhere near the infernal
regions before, to my knowledge, and you must take care of us!"

"I will _try_--Miss Harris--may I not say Josephine?" was the reply of
Leslie, who, though he had said very little in that direction, kept his
eyes pretty closely on the wild female counterpart of himself, and was
really getting on somewhat rap