The Custom of the Country

, Mrs. Heeny, seated on a low chair at Undine's knee, gave the girl's

ignificance; and Undine, echoing the laugh in a murmur of complacency, slipped on

e said, examining the ring while she rubbed her cushioned palm over the girl's brilliant finger

near in fond beatitu

he BOUGHT it for her, M

'ny

er heard of ancestral jewels, Mrs. Spragg? In the Eu-ropean aristocracy they ne

Oh, I thought maybe they were

planation, rose from her seat and

really want me to do your ha

table. Her shoulders shone through transparencies of lace and muslin which sli

to do it-I want to l

" said Mrs. Heeny in a tone that belie

have had that French maid 'round to-night," sighed Mrs

h, Mrs. Spragg leaned back, drinking in through half-closed lids her daughter's loveliness. Some new quality seemed added to Undin

time at this dinner?" Mrs. Heeny pursued, sweepi

nfidently, took up a hand-glass and scrutinized the

k to him," Mrs. Spragg averred

, anyhow," said Mrs. Heeny; and

on't think I

id you read the descri

I wish't I'd 'a had tim

a separate bag for

e her head and gazed through lowered lids

, as the pink petals sank into the hair above the girl's forehead. Undine pushed her chair back, and s

was put in the other night; only hers was a camell

egen looked like a ros

tically. "Sit still a m

'd feel easier if I was

th hands on the girl's shoulders, and bending over to peer at he

om chin to brow, and running rosily over the white s

see you now!" M

oss the room and became lost in a minute ex

Undine slipped fro

To the Prince of Wales. I broke it of

s cautiously over her arm, ad

o to Europe now," sh

careful of my hair!" She ducked gracefully to slip into the lacy fabric which her mother held above her head. A

her's; and Mrs. Spragg, wheeling about to screen her daug

YOU, Mrs. Lipscomb? W

sn't half d

Undine murmured as she slipped her

blond person surged across the threshold. "Seems to me I ought to l

with resentment, muttered to Mrs. Heeny, as she bent down to shake o

agement were new and mysterious to Undine, and none more so than the unaccountable necessity of "dragging"-as she phrased it-Mrs. Spragg into the affair. It was an accepted article of the Apex creed that parental detachment should be completest at the moment when the filial fate was decided; and to find that New Yor

as fortified now by the feeling of power that came with the sense of being loved. If they would only leave her mother out she was

f "Signers" and their females, she felt a conscious joy in her ascendancy. Old Mr. Dagonet-small, frail and softly sardonic-appeared to fall at once under her spell. If she felt, beneath his amen

on; and this was confirmed by such echoes of the short sharp struggle as reached the throbbing listeners at the Stentorian. But the conflict over, the air had immediately cleared, showing the enemy in the act of uncondition

oubts of her good faith, and if she left the burden of the talk to her lively daughter it might

brother, and had guessed that this would make her either a strong ally or a determined enemy. The latter alternative, however, did not alarm the girl. She thought

fferences had already taught her to modulate and lower her voice, and to replace "The I-dea!" and "I wouldn't wonder" by more polished locutions; and she had not been ten minutes at table before she found that to seem very much in love, and a little confused and subdued by the newness and intensity of the sentiment, was, to the Dagonet mind, the becoming attitude for a young lady in her situation. The part was not hard to play, for she

d always been like a kind of back-kitchen to business-the place where the refuse was thrown and the doubtful messes were brewed. As a drawing-room topic, and one t

, was struck by their lack of points. She had never paused to consider what her father and mother were "interested" in, and, challenged to specify, could have named-with sincerity-only herself. On the subject of her New York friends it was not much easier to enlarge; for so far her circle had grown less rapidly than she expected. She had fancied Ralph's wooing would at once admit her to

e me round," she said to Mr. Dagonet, with a side-sparkle for Ralph, whose

mother's friends," the old gentleman rejoin

you into society," Mr. Dagonet pursued; and Undine had the

. We were school-mates,

b? What is Mr. Lip

btleties of a professional classification unknown to Apex had already taught her that in New York it is mo

distinctions. She felt a sudden contempt for Harry Lipscomb, who had already struck her as too loud, and irrelevantly comic. "I gues

w together. "A divorce? H'm-that's b

enough. But he's been a disappointment to her. He isn't in the right set, and I

l on a pause which prolonged and deepened itself to receive them, while every face at the ta

nd's situation be if, as you put it, she 'got

t wouldn't be the reason GIVEN, of course. Any lawyer could

e palpitating, silence

lp

ertain parts of the country such-unfortunate arrangements-are beginning to be tolerated. But in New York,

at gave another amazing glimpse into the camera obscura of New York society. "Do you mean

would depend, I should say, on th

of course! That woul

h. "You see, Undine, you'd better

all depends on YOU! Out in Apex, if a girl marries a man who don't come up to what she expe

" he caught up her joke, tossing it back at her

ly-veined old hand on, hers, and said, with a change of tone that relaxed th