e charms
of his club."

"His club! Oh, I think he has gone to see the house," Lucy said. "He
promised----; it is not very far off."

"The house? You mean that woman's house. Lucy, I have no patience with
you any more than I have with Tom. Why don't you put a stop to it? why
don't you--for I suppose you have found out what sort of a woman she is
by this time, and why she came here?"

"She came----to introduce Bice and establish her in the world," Lucy
said, in a faint tone. "Oh! Aunt Randolph, please do not let us discuss
it! It is not what I like to think of. Bice will be sacrificed to the
first rich man who asks her; or at least that is what the Contessa
means."

"My dear Lucy," said the Dowager, calmly, "that is reasonable enough. I
wish the Contessa meant no worse than that. Most girls are persuaded to
marry a rich man if he asks them. I don't think so much of that. But it
will not be so easy as she thinks," the Dowager added. "It is true that
beauty does much--but not everything; and a girl in that position, with
no connections, or, at least, none that she would not be better
without----"

Lucy's attention strayed from this question, which once had been so
important, and which now seemed so secondary; but the conversation must
be maintained. She said at random: "She has a beautiful voice."

"Has she? And the Contessa herself sings very well. That will no doubt
be another attraction," said Lady Randolph, in her impartial way. "But
the end of it all is, who will she get to go, and who will invite them?
It is vain to lay snares if there is nothing to be caught."

"They will be invited--here," said Lucy, faltering a little. "I told you
I am to have a great gathering on the 26th."

"I could not believe my ears. You!--and she is to appear here for the
first time to make her _debut_. Good heavens, Lucy! What can I say to
you--_that_ girl!"

"Why not, Aunt Randolph?" said Lucy (oh, what does it matter--what does
it matter, that she should make so much fuss about it? she was saying
in herself); "I have always liked Bice, and she has been very good to
little Tom."

"Well," cried the angry lady, forgetting herself, and smiling the fierce
smile of wrath, "there is no doubt that it is perfectly appropriate--the
very thing that ought to happen if we lived according to the rules of
nature, without thought of conventionalities and decorums, and so
forth--oh, perfectly appropriate! If you don't object I know no one who