The Custom of the Country

a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend

on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick young finger

," she merely threw over h

y?" Mrs. Spragg murmured

, her rusty veil thrown back, and a shabby alligator bag at her

agreed, answering the spirit rather th

h oval portraits of Marie Antoinette and the Princess de Lamballe. In the centre of the florid carpet a gilt table with a top of Mexican onyx sustained a palm in a gilt basket tied with a pink bow. But for this ornament, and a copy of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" which lay beside it, the room showed no traces of hu

espoke an organized and self-reliant activity, accounted for by the fact that Mrs. Heeny was a "society" manicure and masseuse. Toward Mrs. Spragg and her daughter she filled the d

professional commendation suddenly shifted its

, crumpling the note and tossing it with a

. Popple?" Mrs. Spragg

but the next instant she added, with an outbreak of childish disappointmen

roped for her eye-glass among the je

hot out sparks of curiosity. "

; while her mother continued: "Undine met them both last night at that party downstairs. An

ne flashed back, her grey eyes darting warnings

eproachfully; but Mrs. Heeny, heedless of their b

Walsingham Popple--t

abel Lipscomb introduced him. I don't care if I neve

Mrs. Heeny?" Mrs

smiled indulgently on her hearers. "I know everybody. If they don't know ME they ain't in it, and Claud Walsingham Popple

doubling and twisting on herself, and every movement she made seemed to start at the nape of her neck, just below the lifted roll of reddi

e Marvells? Are THEY

pedagogue who has vainly striven to implant t

time and again! His mother was a Dagonet. They liv

er, "'way down there? Why do they live with somebody else

e rapid, and she fixed her ey

Mr. Marvell's as s

lsingham Popple ain't in

ith a spring, snatching and sm

d--is that the

ord; yes. What doe

sunset had struck it through the tripl

eer? Why does SHE want me? She's never seen me!" Her tone implied t

ghed. "HE saw

rse he did--Mr. Popple brought h

man in society wants to meet a girl a

But they haven't all got sisters, have they? It

their married friends," sa

pragg, slightly shocked, but genuine

o! Marrie

ursued Mrs. Spragg, feeling that if this were

aper cuttings, which she spread on her ample lap and proceeded to sort with a moistened forefinger. "Here," she said, holding one of the slips at arm's length; and throwing back her head she read, in a slow unpunctuated chant: '"Mrs. Henley Fairford gave another of her natty little dinners l

rly; while Mrs. Spragg, impressed, but anxious for

e in Thirty-eighth Street,

-Why, yes, I know her," she said, addressing herself to Undine. "I mass'd her for a sprained ankle a couple of years ago. Sh

Abner E. Spragg--I never saw anything so funny! 'Will you ALLOW

nd that girls can't do anything without their mothers' permission? You just remember that. Undine.

w'll mother kn

her you want to dine with Mrs. Fairford," Mrs. Heeny added humorou

ote, then?" Mrs. Spragg as

Undine can write it as if it was from yo

her mother sank back, murmuring plaintively: "Oh, don't go yet, Mrs. Heeny. I haven't s

hotel, with a father compelled to seek a semblance of social life at the hotel bar, and a mother deprived of even this contact with her kind, and reduced to illness by boredom and inactivity. Poor Mrs. Spragg had done her own washing in her youth, but since her rising fortunes had made this occupation unsuitable she had sunk into the relative inertia which the ladies of Apex City regarded as one of the prerogatives of affluence. At Apex, however, she had belonged to a social club, and, until they moved to the Mealey House, had been kept busy by the incessant struggle with domestic cares; whereas New York

--but she was passionately resolved that Undine should have what she wanted, and she sometimes fancied tha

r nails while we're talking? It'll be more sociable," the masseuse suggested, liftin

bner was resolved not to mind--resolved at any cost to "see through" the New York adventure. It seemed likely now that the cost would be considerable. They had lived in New York for two years without any social benefit to their daughter; and it was of course for that purpose that they had come. If, at the time, there had been other and more pres

d be borne in on her. Mrs. Spragg did not mind the long delay for herself--she had stores of lymphatic patience. But she had noticed lately that Undine was beginning to b

murmured, feeling quieter herself as he

that? U

way he acted last night she thought he'd be sure to come round this

as quick as that in New York," said Mrs.

say New Yorkers are always in a hurry; but I can't s

k. "You wait, Mrs. Spragg, you wait. If you go too

g exclaimed, with a tragic emphasis th

here. The wrong set's like fly-paper: once you're in it yo

d more helpless sigh. "I wish YOU

afford to wait. And if young Marvell's really taken w

tions, which were prolonged for a happy confidential hour; and she had just bidden the masseuse

ping, with the slack figure of the sedentary man who would be stout if he were not dyspeptic; and his cautious grey eyes with pouch-like underlids had straight black brows like

sting a slow pioneering glance about its gil

asked out to a dinner-party; and Mrs. Heeny says it's to one of the first families. It

y "kept house"--all the fashionable people she knew either boarded or lived in hotels. Mrs. Spragg was easily induced to take the same view, but Mr. Spragg had resisted, being at the moment unable either to sell his house or to let it as advantageously as he had hoped. After the move was

," she added, and he absently rejoined: "I

ighting his cigar, as he usually did before dinner, he took two or th

rong down town?" she asked, he

sband's face was the barometer in which she had long been accustomed to read the leave to go on

if you and Undine will go steady for a while." He paused and lo

t French maid. I don't know as she's got anything fit to we

"Well--I guess she WILL h

f its being shut; then, standing close before his wife, he lo

Spragg. Her jewelled hands trembled in her black brocade lap, and t

s door. Mr. Spragg's black eyebrows gathered in an angry frow

lmer Moffatt's nothing to us--no mo

he doing here? Did you sp

stcoat pockets. "No--I guess Elmer

moan. "Don't you tell

ay; but she may m

his new set she's going wi

e always carried loose in his pocket; and his wife, r

anything to

about furiously. "I'd like to