ated over them;--no words could
describe her intense admiration of books that were so indelicately
realistic! "He is jealous of other writers, I suppose," she thought;
"these literary people hate each other like poison."

Meanwhile Thelma's blue eyes looked puzzled. "I do not know that name,"
she said. "Zola!--what is he? He cannot be great. Shakespeare I
know,--he is the glory of the world, of course; I think him as noble as
Homer. Then for Walter Scott--I love all his beautiful stories--I have
read them many, many times, nearly as often as I have read Homer and the
Norse Sagas. And the world must surely love such writings--or how should
they last so long?" She laughed and shook her bright head archly.
"_Chiffonnier! Point du tout! Monsieur, les divines pensets que vous
avez donne au monde ne sont pas des chiffons._"

Beau smiled again, and offered her his arm. "Let me find you a chair!"
he said. "It will be rather a difficult matter,--still I can but try.
You will be fatigued if you stand too long." And he moved through the
swaying crowd, with her little gloved hand resting lightly on his
coat-sleeve,--while Marcia Van Clupp and her mother exchanged looks of
wonder and dismay. The "fisherwoman" could speak French,--moreover, she
could speak it with a wonderfully soft and perfect accent,--the "person"
had studied Homer and Shakespeare, and was conversant with the best
literature,--and, bitterest sting of all, the "peasant" could give every
woman in the room a lesson in deportment, grace, and perfect taste in
dress. Every costume looked tawdry beside her richly flowing velvet
draperies--every low bodice became indecent compared with the modesty of
that small square opening at Thelma's white throat--an opening just
sufficient to display her collar of diamonds--and every figure seemed
either dumpy and awkward, too big or too fat, or too lean and too
lanky--when brought into contrast with her statuesque outlines.

The die was cast,--the authority of Beau Lovelace was nearly supreme in
fashionable and artistic circles, and from the moment he was seen
devoting his attention to the "new beauty," excited whispers began to
flit from mouth to mouth,--"She will be the rage this season!"--"We must
ask her to come to us!"--"_Do_ ask Lady Winsleigh to introduce
us!"--"She _must_ come to _our_ house!" and so on. And Lady Winsleigh
was neither blind nor deaf--she saw and heard plainly enough that her
reign was over, and in her secre