The Adventures of a Widow

minutes. A vigorous babble of many voices rose from the many upstairs boxes. In some of these Ki

de an obscure girl rapidly prominent, and who, while often distinguished for admirable manners, always contrived to hover near those who were the sovereign reverse of obscure. They would carry only her bouquets, or those of other girls who belonged to the same special and envied clique; they would "take out in the German" only Sallie and her particular intimates. Bitter jealousies among the contemplating dowagers were often a result of this determined

their differences and that all society in New York was more democratic than formerly. Still, it was unimaginable that her aunt Cynthia could ever really change her spots. Where she trod, there, too, must float the aroma of an individua

y toward Sallie. "This is my cousin, Miss Poughkeepsie," she went on; she did not wait for the slow accomplishment of Sallie's forced and freezing bow, bu

ed violation of usage. But that was precisely Pauline's wish-to violate usage, if she could do it without recourse to any merely vulgar rupture. They had all stared at Ralph Kindelon, had treated him as if he

appeared unconscious that everybody did not bow

too much here-to discountenance the performance. Now, I am an irreclaimable talker, as Mrs. Varick can testify; she has hardly done anything but listen since the beginning of our acquaintance. And yet I should like to feel that I had my tribu

ansgress all bounds of civil decency. Mrs. Poughkeepsie was capable of not a little insolence at a pinch; her ramparts were spiked, and could deal no gentle hurts to those who sought anythi

music," she now said. "But then my

erent sphere from himself; he usually went with jockeys and prize-fighters, whenever the demands of his great position permitted such association, in his na

indelon. "Undoubtedly German music is based upon

know anything about grand ideahs. The small ones

trikingly slim, who gazed at people condescendingly over a pale parapet of very stiff shirt-collar, and who

ambiguous giggle. But Mr. Hackensack, who was stout, with a pair of large black eyes set in a fat, colorless, mind

ing," drawled Sallie, while she looked in

eping his countenance. His two friends, who thought him a devilish clever f

on, telling herself that he must surely see the pi

of the idle autocracy with which accident had now brought him into contact. He was opposed to it on principle, but he had had no experience of its trivial methods of arrogance. He had come into the box to see Pauline, and he took it

compelled it. He discoursed upon the patent absurdities of Italian opera with a nimble wit and an incisive severity. Then he justified his preference for Donizetti and Rossini with a readiness that made his past sarcasm on their modes quickly forgotten. A

from a world which they did not care to know about, but from a world greater and higher than any which they were capable of knowing about. And finally, in the flush of this handsome little triumph, he made h

behind him. Pauline at first marked its cogency, and then observed this gradually dissolve.

sie to Pauline, "he is a person who

ow abaout 'em. I'm fond of readin' a good novel. It's so jolly if

els," said Sallie, with a drowsy scor

ted the address of his hatter," de

ed Mr. Van Arsdale, wi

Hackensack, who always said "I guess," for "I fancy," and had a nasal vo

t Mr. Fyshkille and his two allies

, and not copy that of some English model. But your uncivil comments on Mr. Kindelon before

as if he thought Mrs. Varick's wrath great fun, and Sallie exchanged a look of ironical distress wi

a seat in their carriage, but even if this had not been the case, neither mother nor daughter would have vented upon Pauline any of the disapproval she

is lordship and were alone at home together, the young l

ay. It's perfectly preposterous! If there is one thing on eart

uite right. But she's her own mistre

llie, loosening her opera cloak, "when they

ludicrously; that is all. We must let her have her head, as one says of a horse. Her father was always full of caprices; he wouldn't have died a poor man if he had not been. She merely has a caprice now. Of course

should induce her to marry him. How awful such a thing would be! I declare, the very thought of it is sickening! With that superb fortune, too! I s

at the height of their winter gayeties. She soon quitted her Bond Street residence for good, and secured a small basement-house on a side

sitting-room, where everything was unique and choice, from the charming chandelier of twisted silver to the s

?" he repeated, with the gay gleam

on, of

ant, though I was not quite sure. I almost feared lest

ine, raising her brows, wit

y a good fortnight," he returned. "I had wond

vely firm and resolute. She was always particularly handsome when she tried to look thus; she was just sle

. "Then I have a proposition to make you. It concerns an immediate course o

iamson Dares.' One feels like saying, 'Does she?' Don't think me irredeemably trifling, and plea

thi

pleased anticipation, fell

nously intellectual sense. And yet she is a very extraordin

roubledly. "That does no

city letters, in newspaper editorials, in anonymous fine-print columns, in the back parts of fashion and household magazines-and she does it still. For a number of years past she has superintended a periodical of the popular sort, which I dare say you have never heard of. The amount of work that she accomplishes is enormous. A strong man would stagger under it, but this frail woman (you'll think her frail when you see her) bears it with wondrous endurance. Her life has been a terrible failure, looked at from one point of view-for it is scarcely exaggeration to say that had she not been handicapped by poverty in the beginning she might have swayed and charmed her generation with great books. But from another point of view her life has been a sublime success; she has trampled all aspiration under foot, forsworn every impulse of honorable egotism, and toiled for the maintenance of a home, for the education of her two daughters. They are both grown up, now-girls who are themselves bread-winners like their mother, and bearing their yoke of labor as cheerfully, though not with the same splendid strength, as she. One is a school-teacher in a well-known kindergarten here, and one has become an artist of no contemptible ability. Meanwhile Mrs. Dares has not merely established a pleasant and refined household; she has caused to be diffused f

s of her own question, she added, with a little penitent nod: "Oh, ye

tainments of her various friends, and she always does so clad elegantly, richly, but without a shadow of ostentatious display. On these occasions her society is eagerly sought. I have sometimes wondered why; for her conversation, though invariably full of sound sense and pithy acumen, lacks the cheerful play of humor which is so widely demanded to generate anything like

delon seemed to muse for a brief space; and any such unconversational mood was rare, as we know, with his mercur

ine, with a somewhat irritate

with admonitory comedy of gesture. "You must not tell me that you don't understand," he said. "Put yourself in

continued more slowly, "from an aimless world into one of thought and sense. Mrs. Dares is prominent in this other world. From what you say I should judge that she is a very representative and influential spirit there. Why should she not be benign and gracious enough to seek me here? Why should she require that I shall emphatically pay her my court? Yo

such heartiness that more of his strong white teeth were trans

ourse it doesn't. But, my dear lady, this is unequivocally true. You scoff at social standing, and yet you complacently base yourself upon it. You want to desert all your old tenets, and yet you keep a kind of surreptitious clasp about them. You would not for the world be considered a person who cared for the aristocratic purple, and yet you wrap it round you in

her gown came the impatient little tap of a nervous foot. After an interval of silence, during which her friend's gaze watched

e a failure?-an unreal

sympathetic laughs which belonged among his elusiv

will it," s

and you have only to take your first step. It will certainly look much better to know some of your courtiers before you asce

ich means-

accompany you to Mrs. Da

invited!" excl

adiction. "Miss Cora, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Dares, told me last

ner as oddly unexpected. "So you have already spoken of me?" she said ling

d with tones that were not just set in an u

mentioned me t

. She knows that you may be

ad managed to avoid Pauline's, w

had somehow made itself felt between them. "Are

ith an unwonted vacillation of h

t friends, I may say. You will find her quite as charming, in a different way, as her

, and laid it for an insta

h you this eve