The girls descended the twisted stair into the wide hall. All the doors and windows were open, and the soft air blew through the great house, lifting the lace and silken curtains.

A girl, looking like a large butterfly, in her yellow frock, was fluttering about the hall amidst the palms and the huge vases of flowers. Her skin was of matchless tints, her large blue eyes as guileless as those of an infant.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried, as Hal and Patience reached the first landing, “how perfectly sweet! Hal, is my frock all right in the back? My things never fit quite as well as yours do. Isn’t Patience too fetching for words? I wish I was just white like that. How perfectly funny that we should be giving a garden party for Bev’s wife! Who would have thought it last year? Isn’t it odd how things do happen? And hasn’t Honora been perfectly lovely about it? I always knew she didn’t care. I wonder if any decent men will come up! It’s so hard—Hal, does my frock wrinkle in the back?”

“Oh, no, no,” drawled Hal, without looking at her. She glanced at the tall clock in an angle. “They’ll be here in ten minutes, now—Oh—h—h!”

A portiÈre was pushed aside, and a girl entered the hall from a dark background of books and heavy curtains. She was far above the ordinary height of woman, and extremely slender. Golden hair clustered about a long face, pale rather than white. The large azure eyes had the extraordinary clarity of childhood, and an expression of perfect purity. The nose was long, the mouth thin, but well curved and very red. She wore a clinging gown of white crÊpe and a large knot of blue wild-flowers at her belt. She moved slowly forward, managing her long limbs with much dexterity, but could hardly be called graceful. Patience thought her the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, and murmured her admiration to Hal, who snorted in a gentle, ladylike way.

“They will be here in a moment, I suppose,” said Honora, wearily. “I think I shall not go out. I’ll stay in the drawing-room and entertain the older people. Some one must attend to them, and I really prefer the house.”

“You are always so amiable,” said Hal, drily, “and you certainly won’t get freckled.”

“It is true that I don’t like freckles,” said Honora, calmly, “and I do like the older people. Even you, when you have a few white hairs, may become more or less interesting. Patience, dear, you look very lovely. You must let me kiss you.” She bent her cool lips to the brow of the bride, swaying over her. Her voice could not be described by any adjective devoid of the letter L. It was liquid, silvery, cold, light.

“She certainly is a stunning-looking woman,” said Hal, as Honora passed into the drawing-room, “but she’s a whole rattlesnake, and no mistake. I’ve never seen her strike real hard yet; she merely spits occasionally, and always in that amiable way. You can imagine how subtle she is, and what a dangerous force such self-control is. I shall never understand how she failed to get Bev.”

“Perhaps, as May suggests, she didn’t want him.”

“Oh, didn’t she! Just wait! you’ll hear from her yet. There’s the whistle. The train’ll be here in three minutes. Let us group ourselves gracefully under Peele the First.”

They went into the large white drawing-room, whose old-fashioned woodwork was as it had been nearly three hundred years ago, even to the heavy shutters over the small-paned windows. The ceiling was fretted with floral designs, executed in papier mÂchÉ, surrounding a bas relief of “our well beloved Whyte Peele,” who had received the grant of these many acres from James the First. All the woodwork was painted white, and carved. The furniture, modern, but of colonial design, was upholstered in pale pink and blue.

Beyond a side hall was a long dining-room panelled to the ceiling in oak, and hung on all sides with dead and living Peeles. The carved oaken table was spread with the light unsubstantial feast of the modern time. Adjoining the dining-room were two small reception-rooms looking upon the terrace at the back of the rambling old house. In the middle of this hall, under the carved twisted stair, was a round enclosure whose door opened upon a well, from whence a secret passage led to the river.

Mrs. Peele swept across the hall from the dining-room, and raising her lorgnette, considered Patience.

“You look very well,” she said, coldly. “Don’t get nervous, please; it is the one thing for which people have no toleration. Where is Beverly?”

“He has gone for a drive. You know he does not like entertainments.” Patience’s nerves were muttering, and her mother-in-law’s admonition was not of the nature of balm.

Mrs. Peele raised her brows. “It is odd that a bride should have so little influence over her husband,” she remarked; and Patience was now in that equable frame of mind which carries one through the severe ordeals of life.

How she did live through that ordeal of introduction to some five hundred people she never knew. Fortunately, all but the neighbours arrived on the special train which had been sent for them, and there was little for her to do but smile and bend her head as Mrs. Peele named her new daughter-in-law to her guests.

And whatever might be that exalted dame’s private opinion of her son’s choice, whatever methods she might employ in untrammelled domestic hours to make her disapproval felt, to the world she assumed her habitual air of being supremely content with all that pertained to the house of Peele. Had Patience been the daughter of a belted earl she could not have been presented to New York with a haughtier pride, a calmer assumption that New York must embrace with gratitude and enthusiasm this opportunity to meet the daughter-in-law of the Gardiner Peeles.

Her manner gave Patience confidence after a time. Her own pride had already conquered diffidence; and trying as the long ordeal was, she thrilled a little at the sudden realisation of half-formed ambitions. There was no taint of the snob in her; some echo-voice of other generations lifted itself out of the inherited impressions which had moulded her brain cells, and protested against its descendant ranking below the first of the land.

Many of the guests were politely indifferent to the honour provided for them; the girls stared at her in a manner calculated to upset any dÉbutante’s equilibrium; but the gracious kindness of others and the languid admiration of the men kept her in poise.

The neighbours arrived shortly after the train, and it was an hour before the greater part of the company had dispersed over the grounds, and Patience could sit down. Mrs. Peele remained in the drawing-room with some eight or ten people, and as Hal and May had both disappeared, Patience stayed with her mother-in-law, not knowing where to go.

She thought the girls very forbidding with their pert noses and keen eyes, although she admired their luminous skin and splendid grooming, striking even in the airy attire of spring. The older women looked as if they would patronise her did Mrs. Peele withdraw her protecting wing, and one man, passing the window, inserted a monocle and regarded her deliberately. Suddenly Patience experienced a sensation of profound loneliness. No force in life is surer of touch than the subtle play of spirit on spirit, and Patience read that these people did not like her and never would, that they recognised the alien who would regard their world spectacularly, never acquire their comic seriousness.

“Are you fond of golf, Mrs. Peele?” asked one girl, languidly.

“I never have played golf.”

The girl raised her brows. “Really! Are you fond of tennis?”

“I have never played tennis.” Patience repressed a smile as the girl looked frankly shocked. Still the guest was evidently determined to be amiable.

“I hope you don’t think it frivolous?”

“Oh, no, I should like to learn all those things very much.”

“Well, Miss Peele can teach you. She is awfully clever at all those things. Don’t you think Miss Mairs looks like Mary Anderson?”

“Mary Anderson?”

“Yes, the actress, you know.”

“I have never seen her.”

The girl was visibly embarrassed. Another, who looked as if harbouring a grin in her straight little mouth, came to the rescue.

“Oh, I do think Mr. Peele is so good-looking,” she exclaimed, with a fine show of animation. “We all think you are to be congratulated.”

Patience smiled at the frank rudeness of this remark, and said nothing.

“You know Amy Murray was wild about him. She’s not here to-day, I notice. We did think it too bad that he wouldn’t go out. Some of the girls have met him here, but I never have. They say he is awfully fascinating.”

“Oh, yes, he is fascinating,” said Patience.

“What have you been doing with yourself if you have never learned to golf nor play tennis?” asked another girl, insolently. She was a tall girl, with a wooden face, a tight mouth, and an “air.”

“Oh, I read, mostly,” said Patience, with an extremely bored air.

The mother of the third girl turned swiftly and smiled at the bride, a humorous smile in which there was some pity. Patience had observed her before. She was a tall woman with a slender figure of extreme elegance. Her dark bright face was little older than her daughter’s. Her ease of manner was so great that it was almost self-conscious.

“Oh, say!” she exclaimed, “don’t think we’re all like that. The girls don’t have much time to read—that’s true—but after they settle down they do, really. Hal reads French novels—the little reprobate!—We read French novels too, but a lot else besides. Oh, really! Outsiders—the people that only know society through the newspapers, don’t you know?—misjudge us terribly, really. Some of the brightest women of the world are in New York society—why shouldn’t they be? And if the girls don’t study it’s their own fault; they certainly have every opportunity under the sun. I was made to study. My father was old-fashioned, and had no nonsense about him. I always say I was educated beyond my brains, but I’d rather have it that way than the other. Now, I assure you I read everything. I have a standing order on the other side with an English and a French book-seller, to send me every book the minute it attracts attention—”

“Oh, you’re real intellectual, you are,” drawled Hal’s mocking voice.

The lady turned with a start and a little flush.

“Oh, Hal!” she cried gaily, “how you do take the starch out of one.”

“You’ve got enough to stock a laundry, so you needn’t worry. I’ve come to rescue my fair sister-in-law before you talk her to death. Come, Patience.”

Patience arose with alacrity, and followed her out of the house.

“Don’t you like her?” she asked.

“Oh, immensely. She’s as bright as a woman can be who has so little time to think about it. She’s a tall and majestic pillar of Society, you know, and she carries it—the intellect, not the pillar—round like a chip on her shoulder. That makes me weary at times. I’ve heard her talk for an hour without stopping. The only thing that makes me forgive her is her slang. We have a match occasionally.”

“Her daughter doesn’t look as if she used slang.”

“Oh, she doesn’t. She’s no earthly use whatever. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Not particularly. But it’s a lovely scene.”

The lawns, and knolls, and woods were kaleidoscopic with fashionettes in gay attire, shifting continually. There were not men enough to mar the brilliant effect. The music of birds soared above the chatter of girls, the sound of wood and brass. The river flashed away into the distance, a silver girdle about Earth’s green gown.

“Yes, very pret,” said Hal. “But come, I’m going to introduce you to my latest.”

“You didn’t tell me that you had a latest.”

“I’ve only met him a few times—he’s from Boston. I expect I forgot about him.”

They were walking over the lawns toward the Tea House, a long low rustic building which stood on the edge of the slope. A hubbub of voices floated through the windows, peals of laughter, affected shrieks.

“A lot of my intimates are there,” said Hal. “I’ve managed to get them together. May is doing the hostess act with her accustomed grace and charm, and I’m taking a half hour off.”

They went round to the front of the house and entered. It was an airy structure of polished maple. Little tables, each with a delicate tea-service, were scattered about with artistic irregularity; round the wall ran a divan, luxurious, but not too low for whaleboned forms. On this the girls were stiffly lounging. The men were more at their ease. All were smoking, the girls daintily, but firmly.

“Hal! Hal! sweet Queen Hal!” cried one of the young men, rising to his feet. “I’ve been keeping this place—directly in the middle—for you. See, it shall be a throne.” He piled three cushions atop, and with exaggerated homage led her forward amidst the ejaculatory applause of the others.

“Isn’t Norry too witty?” said one girl to Patience, as she made room for her, “and so original! Whoever else would have thought of such a thing?—although Hal ought to be a queen, don’t you think so? We just rave about her. Do you smoke? try my kind.”

Patience, thankful that at last she could do something like these people, accepted the cigarette. During her three months’ trip she had not smoked, as Beverly thought it shocking.

“Mr. Wynne,” cried Hal, suddenly, “come over here and talk to my sister-in-law. Patience, this is the young man from Boston, famous as the only New Englander whose ancestors did not come over on the ‘May Flower.’”

A man with a smooth serious face rose from his cushions and came forward.

“Awfully good-looking,” murmured the girl who had proffered the cigarette, “and wonderfully smart, considering he’s not a New Yorker. It’s too bad he’s so beastly poor, for he’s terribly Épris with Hal.”

The young man, who had paused a moment to speak with Hal, inserted himself as best he could between Patience and her new acquaintance.

“I am glad you are here,” murmured the bride. “You do not look quite at home, and I am not, either.”

He smiled with instant sympathy. “Oh, I don’t care very much for society, and I don’t like to see women smoke. It’s an absurd prejudice to have in these progressive days, but I can’t help it.”

“You mean you don’t like to see Miss Peele smoke,” said Patience, mischievously.

He flushed, then laughed. “Well, perhaps that is it. They are all charming, these girls, but there is something about Miss Peele that distinguishes her. Did you ever notice it?”

“Oh, yes. She is herself, and these others are twelve for a dozen.”

“That is it.” He glanced about at the girls in their bright gowns, which clung to their tiny waists and hips, their narrow chests and modest busts, with the wrinkleless perfection that has made the modern milliner the god he is. Their polished skin and brilliant shallow eyes, their elegant sexless forms, their haughty poise and supercilious air, laid aside among themselves but always in reserve, their consciousness of caste, were the several parts of a unique and homogeneous effect, which, Patience confided to Mr. Wynne, must mark out the New York girl in whatever wilds she trod.

“Oh, it does,” he said. “The New York girl is sui generis, and so thoroughly artificial a product that it seems incredible she can exist through another generation. I will venture to predict that the species will be extinct in three, and that American women of a larger and more human type will gradually be drawn into New York, and found a new race, so to speak. Why, it seems to me that the children of these women must be pigmies—imagine one of those girls being the mother of a man. It is well that New York is not America.”

Involuntarily Patience’s eyes wandered to Hal. Her waist was as small, her figure as unwomanly as the others.

“It is true,” said Wynne, answering her thought; “but she is so charming that one is quite willing she should do nothing further for the human race.”

Patience burst into a light laugh.

“What’s the matter?” asked Wynne.

“It suddenly struck me—the almost comical difference between these girls and the ‘Y’s,’ and the ‘King’s Daughters.’ It does not seem possible that such types can exist within ten miles of each other. I should explain that I have passed the last three years in a country town.”

“It is odd how religion holds its own in those small places. It is opera, theatre, balls, Browning societies, everything to those people shut out of the manifold distractions of cities. Religion seems to be the one excitement of the restricted life. Human nature demands some sort of emotional outlet—”

“What on earth are you two talking about?” cried the girl on the other side. “Will you have another cigarette, Mrs. Beverly?—that is what we shall all call you, you know. Mr. Wynne, please talk to me a while. Isn’t this Tea House too sweet?”

“It is more,—it is angelic,” said Wynne, gravely.

“Oh! you’re guying!” Even her voice pouted. “Oh! please shake those ashes off my gown—quick!—thanks. Oh, your eyes are grey. I thought they were brown. I’m afraid of grey eyes, aren’t you, Mrs. Beverly—Oh, dear! your eyes are grey too. What ever shall I do?” and she cast up her hands. Even her sleek hair seemed to quiver.

“It is the misfortune of the American race to run to grey eyes,” said Wynne. “Habit should have steeled you by this time—”

“Oh, he made a pun! he made a pun!” cried the girl.

“I did not!—I beg pardon, but I never did such a thing in my life,” cried Wynne, indignantly; and Patience felt suddenly depressed, although she too had found a friend in habit.

Hal rose while the girl was lisping mock apologies.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “Isn’t it hateful? But I must go and do my duty. Patience, you must come too. Why are you blocking the doorway, Mr. Wynne?”

“I am going with you.”

“Really? Well, bye-bye;” and the three went off, followed by a gentle chorus of regrets.

“Patience, my dear,” said Hal, “there is a group of people over there looking hideously bored. You go and cheer them up, while I do my duty by those austere and venerable dames who are staring through their lorgnettes at the dining-room windows—”

“Oh, Hal, I can’t! Don’t send me to those people alone. What can I say to them?”

“Patience, my dear, this is a world of woe. One day you will be chÂtelaine of this place and be giving garden-parties on your own account, so you’d better take the kindergarten course, and be thankful for the chance. Go on.”

Patience walked unwillingly over to a group of four women seated under a drooping oak. She had forgotten the names of nine tenths of the guests, but she recognised Mrs. Laurence Gibbs, a plain rather dowdy little woman with sad face and abstracted gaze. Beside her on the rustic seat was a woman who gave a dominant impression of teeth: they fairly flashed in the shadows. In a chair sat a woman of remarkable prettiness. She would have been a beauty had her features been larger, so regular were they, so sweet her expression, so soft her colouring of pink and white and brown, so tall and full her figure. In another chair was a young woman of no beauty but much distinction. Her prematurely white hair was curled and tied at the base of her head with a black ribbon, realising an eighteenth century effect. Her face was dark and brilliant. She sat forward, her slim figure full of suppressed energy. She had been talking with much animation, but as Patience approached she paused abruptly. The pretty woman burst into a merry laugh.

“Mrs. Lafarge was just remarking what hideous bores garden parties are,” she said audaciously.

“Oh, you needn’t mind me,” said Patience, sitting down on the grass, as there was no other seat. “I quite agree with you.”

“Oh, that’s awfully good of you, Mrs. Peele,” said Mrs. Lafarge, “and awfully mean of you, Mary Gallatin. Of course this is one of the loveliest places on the Hudson, and I love to come here; but there are not enough men. That’s the whole trouble.”

“That always seems to be the cry with you American women,” said she of the teeth. “You have no resources. You should be independent of men. They seem to be of you.”

“Perhaps you are driven to resources in Russia,” said Mrs. Gallatin, sweetly, “but your observation is faulty. We are spoiled over here, and that is the reason we grumble occasionally.”

“You see we haven’t a large leisure class, as you have,” said Mrs. Gibbs, hastily.

“I really think the reason men avoid garden parties is that they are afraid they might be betrayed into sentiment,” broke in Mrs. Lafarge. “They do protect themselves so fiercely. How did you ever make Tom Gallatin propose, Mary dear? He had the most ideal bachelor apartment in New York, and entrenched himself as in a fortress.”

“Oh, one or two fall by the wayside every year, you know, and this time Gally happened to stumble over me. Poor Gally, he told me yesterday that he hadn’t seen me to speak to for a month. The idea of the lower classes grumbling. I should like to know who works as hard as we do. How do you manage to do the society and the charity, both?” she asked of Mrs. Gibbs. “Does Mr. Gibbs ever see you?”

“I never neglect my husband,” said Mrs. Gibbs, sternly. “When I must neglect anything it is society. I came to-day because I longed for a glimpse of the country, and I have not been able to go to Woody Cliffs yet—the poverty is so terrible this year. I wish you would come with me sometime and see for yourself—”

“God forbid! I never could stand the smells. I give my pastor so much a year, and I really think that’s doing one’s share. Of course if you like it, it’s another thing.”

“Like it!” cried the Russian. “You speak as if it were her pastime. I cannot express how gratifying it is to me to meet a serious woman occasionally in New York society.”

“I had a lovely time in Petersbourg,” murmured Mrs. Gallatin. “I never met an offensive Russian inside of the country. Poor America!”

“I don’t understand,” said the foreigner, stiffly.

“Oh, I am sure you understand English—you express yourself so clearly. We all weep over America occasionally, you know. It is a sort of dumping ground for foreigners,—who sit at our feet, and abuse us.”

“One is at liberty to abuse insolence,” said the Russian, with suppressed wrath, “and the women of New York are the most insolent I have ever met.”

“Oh, not among ourselves—not really. We think it insolent in outsiders to elbow their way in—”

“Mary! Mary!” cried Mrs. Gibbs. “I hear that you spent some years with Miss Harriet Tremont,” she continued, addressing Patience. “She passed her entire life in charitable work, did she not?”

“Oh, she did, and she enjoyed it too. Don’t you?”

Mrs. Gallatin laughed softly.

“Enjoy it?” said Mrs. Gibbs. “I never have looked at it in that way. I think it my duty to aid my miserable fellow beings, and I am thankful that I am able to aid them.”

“Odd, the fads different people have,” murmured Mrs. Gallatin. “Now mine is Russians. What is yours, Leontine?”

“Oh, Mary, you deserve to be shaken,” exclaimed Mrs. Lafarge, as the Russian sprang to her feet and stalked away.

“I can’t help it. She’s a boor, and I wish she’d go back and live with a Cossack. Foreigners are all very well on their native heath, but as soon as they are transplanted to this side and treated with common decency they become intolerable. They grovel at our feet, swell because we receive them, and sneer at us behind our backs.”

“I think you have a way of irritating them, my dear,” said Mrs. Gibbs. “You are a very naughty girl. Won’t you sit up here by me, Mrs. Peele? I am afraid the ground is damp. I shall ask you some time to explain to me Miss Tremont’s methods. I often feel sadly at sea.”

“Oh, dear!” said Patience, “I doubt if I know them. I just followed her blindly. I may as well confess it—I didn’t take a very great interest in the work.”

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Mrs. Gallatin.

“I am sorry that I have made a mistake,” said Mrs. Gibbs, stiffly.

“Oh, well—you know—there is such a thing as getting too much of anything—”

“Is there?” Mrs. Gibbs rose, and shook out her skirts with an absent air. “I think I will go over and talk to Mrs. Peele;” and she walked away with an awkward gait, her head bent forward. She certainly did not have an “air.”

“Dear! dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Gallatin. “Just think! you have lost the interest of Mrs. Laurence Gibbs. She might have invited you to her exciting musicales or her cast-iron dinners.”

“Oh, don’t abuse her,” said Mrs. Lafarge. “She is a harmless little soul, and does what she thinks is right.”

“She is happier too,” said Patience, her thoughts in Mariaville. “It is odd, but they always are. I think it’s because they’ve unconsciously cultivated the supremest and most inspired form of egoism, and naturally they get a tremendous amount of joy out of it—”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Mrs. Gallatin. “She analyses!”

“My dear, you mustn’t do that out loud,” said Mrs. Lafarge. “You’ll be a terrible failure if you do.”

“That would be a pity, because you are so pretty,” said Mrs. Gallatin, smiling. “I’ve been staring at you whenever I’ve had the chance, and you don’t know how many charming things I’ve heard said of you this afternoon.”

“Oh, have you really?” asked Patience, warming instantly, as much to the kindly sympathy as to the agreeable words.

“Indeed I have. That violet against your hair and skin makes a perfect picture of you. N’est-ce pas, Leontine?”

“It certainly does.”

“I think you are both very kind,” said Patience, with a young impulse to be frank. “I feel so out of it all. You see this is my first experience of this sort of thing, and some of those girls have made me feel like a barbarian.”

“They’d be glad of your freshness, not only of looks but of mind,” said Mary Gallatin. “I should think it would be a blessed relief to have some other sort of interest but just this,” and she swept out her arm disdainfully. “That’s the reason I go, go, all the time. I don’t dare think. When you have no talent, and are not intellectual, and not frantic about your husband, what are you to do? There’s no other resource, in spite of that Russian prig. I’d give a good deal to be beginning it all again at eighteen.”

“There is no spice in life without violent contrasts,” said Mrs. Lafarge. “That’s the real reason why so many of our good young friends are larky. The trouble with this world is that although there is variety enough in it, each variety travels in a different orbit. The social scheme is all wrong, somehow.”

“True! True!” said Mrs. Gallatin, plaintively. “But I see they are about to eat. The open air always makes me hungry. That is variety enough for the present.”

As they crossed the lawn she laid her arm about Patience’s waist. “Bev doesn’t like society,” she said, “and I’m afraid you’re not in any danger of satiety; but don’t think out loud when you are in it. Leontine never does, do you, Leontine? And she is clever too. It must be delightful to be clever. Heigh-ho! Well, you must be sure to come to see me anyhow. I feel positive we shall be friends. Come some morning at eleven. That is just after I have had my tub and am back in bed again. I love to see my friends then. Oh, dear, we must scatter. There are not two seats together anywhere. Bye-bye.”