Among the forgotten fashions of the years from eighteen-eighty to eighty-five was that of giving our parties, evening or afternoon, for young people or old, of whatever kind, in short, in our own homes; the easy hospitality of clubs or fashionable hotels was not yet known. Houses with double-parlours and a dining-room back were considered ideal for any sort of entertainment; and, of course, such an architectural triumph as the old Gwynne house with that splendid ballroom on the third floor, was hors concours. There was not another home in town to compare with it. Mrs. Pallinder could entertain without disturbing a single piece of the peacock-blue and old-gold furniture; she meant, however, to have the whole place floor-clothed the night of the twelfth. "I can't risk my Moquette carpets with a mob of young people tearing around all over the house, you know, my dear," she said with a smiling pretence of severity; and her guests, eying the rich scrolls and garlands underfoot, gravely acquiesced. Everywhere else, all the movables, except the bookcases and piano, were marshalled upstairs or out on the back porch. The little sofas in our parlours generally went into retirement under the stairs at the rear end of the hall. In the afternoons we were just beginning to have progressive euchres, and what we actually called "high teas." It is doubtless impossible for the mind of to-day to conceive of a society so devoid of education and good taste as to call any species of entertainment a "high tea," but such is the appalling fact. You may pick up a Journal or Evening Despatch of that date, and read not one but many notices such as this:

"At Mrs. Henderson P. Gates' high tea on Monday in the fashionable crush were observed:

Mrs. Colonel Pallinder in a toilet of ottoman silk and silk plush in two shades of electric blue, with garniture of chenille and pearl fringes, and a capote of feathers en suite.

Miss Pallinder in wine-coloured surah with sleeves and draperies of spotted silk grenadine.

Miss Ponsonby-Baxter wore a redingote of crushed-strawberry pekin opening over a brocaded front in shades of the same, with panels of——"

No, I have not the heart to go on with the gaudy details of Muriel's panels and passementerie. But I remember that dress well, and, believe it or not, she looked as nobly and placidly beautiful in the crushed-strawberry redingote as had she been draped like the Winged Victory. Mrs. Gates continued her party with a dance that same evening. "The house was all torn up anyhow," Lily Gates told us; "and mamma thought she might just as well go ahead."

Muriel and J. B., or Mr. Taylor, as she decorously called him,—he was only J. B. to college mates or others who knew him well,—were sitting out a waltz on the top step of the Henderson P. Gates' stairs. It was a long flight, turning sharply at a little landing to reach the upper hall; and the musicians penned in the alcove behind the steps on the first floor were discoursing "A Medley of Popular Airs," with admirable command of rhythm and expression. "Wh-i-te Wings," "Swee-ee-t Vi-o-lets," the sounds travelled up to them as through a chimney. There was a smothering scent of lilacs—the house had been decorated with them—and in pauses of the noise one could hear the window-panes shuddering to the assaults of successive blasts of wind and rain commingled. The spring was early that year. A discreet twilight on the top step held out opportunities for flirtation which Mazie Pallinder never would have neglected in the world; but neither J. B. nor Muriel had any notion of taking advantage of them. The girl was absorbed in a certain dilemma; her even delicate brows were slightly drawn as she studied the pattern of her fan, and wondered how she could lead, draw, drag the conversation around to the desired point. And J. B. was thinking that "Pretty Pond-lilies" was a good waltz, and if it hadn't been so hot, and Miss Baxter something of an armful to pull around—and she couldn't reverse—he would have suggested a turn. He looked at her. It would be desirable, I suppose, to record minutely what Muriel wore that night; I refer you to the columns of the Journal; but does anyone remember that full dress in the eighties—in common with dress for all occasions—comprehended those two aids to beauty, "bangs," and "bustles"? Muriel's pretty copper-brown hair was arranged in the fringe down to the eyebrows, the knot low on the nape of her neck, to which a famous stage-beauty had lately given her name; and I am afraid her black lace skirts were crinolined in the height of the fashion. But the young man thought she looked like Juno—Juno with a bustle! They had been talking about Doctor Vardaman.

"The doctor's really awfully fond of his queer old things," J. B. remarked. "If you show the least interest—and it's not put on with me, I am interested—he'll take you around, and explain to you who all the big-bugs, his ancestors in the portraits were, and what they did, and tell you about his first editions, and the old wine he's got laid away, and the autograph-letters to his grandfather from Benjamin Franklin and all the rest of it."

"How odd!" said Muriel.

"Yes, I suppose it's funny to you, but you see over here we don't have all that the way you do. People aren't used to seeing it about them all the time. I expect that's the reason Huddesley fits in with the doctor so well; he cares for everything and understands—the way old family-servants do in novels you know. He's so English——"

"No, he isn't," said Muriel decidedly. "You think so, but none of you know. Nobody talks like that at home."

"Well, not nice people of course, but servants——"

"No, not servants either. He's no more like a real servant at home than our stage-Yankees are like you."

"You've never come into contact with his class much, I guess," said J. B., remembering that the treatment accorded servants varies widely. "Everything is different with us; now the doctor likes to make him talk. We're all going down there to dinner Friday night, did you know it?"

"What, all of us? Why, that's the night we——"

"No, only the men, I mean. The doctor told Mrs. Pallinder he'd like to have us, and he thought maybe she'd just as lief we were out of the house, while all of you were getting ready for the performance. There are so many of us, you know, for 'William Tell.' Some of the fellows have sent their clothes out to his house, and are going to dress there."

Muriel looked at him timidly. He was unconsciously opening a door for the entrance of that all-important topic; she was not quick, however, and besides she was in doubt whether—whether it would be quite proper for her to speak to him about it at all! Next moment the opportunity was gone.

"If we get everybody in a good humour with the first performance, they won't care if 'Mrs. Tankerville' is a little rocky," J. B. observed sagely. "Teddy isn't so good as Jenks the butler. He's not—not convincing. Ted doesn't look as if he could steal a potato, let alone a hatful of diamonds. And then he hasn't the chances to be funny there are in 'Tell.' Nobody knows their part yet, and here the thing's set for Friday!"

"I'm rather sure of myself all except one place," Muriel said. "We've been going so we haven't had much time to study."

"I know. It's an awful rush this season. The girls can stand it, of course; they rest in the daytime. But a fellow's got to go to business. Somebody said to Arch. Lewis the other day, 'Oh, never mind. They don't need you at the office.' He said, 'Yes, but hang it all, I don't want 'em to find that out!'"

Muriel listened and assented vaguely; she was not accustomed to young men who had businesses and offices. Time was passing, and they were no nearer the point than they were ten minutes ago. She hesitated; and J. B. admired, yet a little wondered at, the swift changes of colour in her cheeks. "These English girls beat everything at blushing," he said to himself; and then removed his eyes with a sudden guilty flush over his own face as he realised that he had been staring too hard. But, Jove, what a beauty she was!

"You all think Mr. Johns is very good in his part, don't you?" said Muriel, nervously conscious that they had been silent too long. American men, she had noticed, expected the girls to do the most of the talking; and, somehow, the girls did.

"Why, yes, especially in 'Tell,' don't you?"

"Well, I—I don't always understand, you know. And the last night we rehearsed, after we went to that dinner at the Ellises', I couldn't even make out some of the words he said, he spoke so——"

"He—he wasn't very well—we had to call the rehearsal off, you remember?" interrupted the young man hastily. Muriel was surprised to see him redden and avoid her eyes. There was an awkward pause—the kind of pause that, had Muriel been an American girl, with their uncanny sharpness of intuition, she would not have allowed to occur. But, had Muriel been an American girl, this history would have remained forever unwritten. But for her visit to the Pallinders' there would have been no 'Tell,' no 'Mrs. Tankerville,' no dinner at Doctor Vardaman's—who can say what might have happened instead?

"Ted can imitate Billy Rice first-rate," said J. B., anxious to steer gracefully away from an uncomfortable situation. "We had a minstrel-show one time, and he made up to look like Rice and sang that song of his:

"Then all the rest of us had to shout, you know,

"They're all the time getting off something about the President marrying again, you know. Teddy was as good as Rice any day."

"Billy Rice?" repeated Muriel. She had not thought the fragment of comic song very comic (and therein I dare say she was right), and she knew no more who Billy Rice was than—than the average reader of these lines. Time has dismissed that fat, jolly troubadour. Upon what bank of misty Acheron does he now perform his melodies? And where are the snows of yester-year?

"He's a big fat fellow—a white man, you know. They're all white, but blacked up, in the minstrel-shows," J. B. explained patiently.

"Fancy! What do they do?"

"Why, sing and dance; buck-and-wing, and all that. It's rather knock-down-and-drag-out fun, some of it; and some's pretty good."

"I don't believe I'd understand the jokes," said Muriel forlornly. "It's so different at home—it's quite simple. Everyone always knows when to laugh. But you know that song you sing in 'Tell,' 'The Maiden on the Icy Plank,' that first verse—would you mind explaining? You know where it says:

I—I don't quite see it—the—the point, you know."

"Oh, that's just nonsense, you know—it's just silly. The fact is—yeast, you know, yeast, well, it makes things rise, and she fell——'

"Oh, she ate the yeast?" said Muriel with a charming smile. "Oh, that's very droll!" She almost laughed. "It didn't say that, you see. That's why I didn't understand. But she ate the yeast!"

"Yes, she ate the yeast," said J. B. resignedly. "One can't quite explain a thing like that somehow. It's only meant to be silly."

"Most of your American jokes are like that, aren't they? I mean they have to be explained. At first I thought it was because I was slow—but you say such queer things—and one can't ever be certain whether you're in fun or earnest."

"I suppose it is hard for a stranger. Is there anything else—any other joke, I mean, that you'd like to get at the true inwardness of?"

Muriel recognised the opportunity she had sought.

"I—I wish you'd tell me, if you don't mind, you know that costume you wear in the play, that kilt—why do you wear that, Mr. Taylor?"

J. B. surveyed her perplexed.

"Why do I wear the kilt and all the rest of it? Why—why to make a little fun, you know."

"I thought that was it," said Muriel earnestly. "But, you see, it's really not funny."

"Oh, isn't it?"

"Not a bit," Muriel assured him; and then her heart dropped dismally at the expression on his face.

He did not looked pleased somehow.

"I—I didn't mean that you aren't funny, you know, I mean it isn't funny."

"I'm afraid I don't catch the distinction," said the young man a little drily. Bitter is the cup of the unappreciated joker.

"I mean—I—I——" quavered Muriel miserably. "Maybe it's because I'm not used to your fun—I don't see things—it's always really funny at home—so different from here—so much easier. But—I—I think you're too—too nice to wear a kilt!"

The tears came into her eyes; tears of embarrassment and perhaps some deeper unanalysed feeling. Amazement encompassed J. B. What on earth was the matter with her? It was not possible she thought the kilt indecent!

"And—and that little red apple on the corner of your head!" faltered Muriel. "It all makes you look so foolish—not at all funny. And you're not foolish—really and truly not the least bit foolish—and I think it's a shame for you to make yourself look so!"

At the moment J. B. looked exceedingly foolish. Her interest was gratifying, of course; there was something almost maternally sweet in it. But it put him, as he phrased it to himself, in an awful box.

"You—you're not vexed, are you?" said Muriel, holding her chin steady by an effort. The young man glanced at her, and surprised an expression that caused him to look away, crimsoning. The next instant he inwardly cursed himself savagely for a despicable cad. Couldn't a nice girl look at him without his imagining——!

"Oh, I wouldn't get mad about a little thing like that, Miss Baxter," he said heartily. "I'm feeling pretty stuck-up about your—your speaking of it at all, you know. Of course, it is a Tom-fool costume, but I've let myself in for it now, and I can't very well back out, and leave them without anybody at the last minute. And I won't look any sillier than the others—not so silly as Ted for instance, in women's clothes."

"Oh, he doesn't make any difference!" said Muriel, almost with impatience.

"Well, he thinks he's pretty important, anyway," J. B. said, wondering privately what they would have done without the comparatively safe and conservative ground of Teddy Johns' character and abilities for a retreat, when the conversational horizon grew overcast. "In the second play especially—making away with peoples' diamond coronets and things! Mrs. Pallinder's going to let us have all hers. She's got some sparklers, you know, regular headlights; you've seen her wear them? Tell you, if I were in Ted's place, I wouldn't want to have 'em in my charge, even for a few minutes—and it's all through the last two acts—until the place where they drag him out from behind the screen, after I'm supposed to shoot him, remember?"

"Yes, where you say: 'Don't put the handcuffs on a dead man, men!'"

"And Billy Potter says: 'He ain't dead; you can't kill that kind with a blast o' dynamite. I guess these here's your tiary, lady.' Ted's going to have it all done up in a package in his inside pocket. He says he's going to keep the things in his clothes the whole time. There are so many servants around, and the carpenters to fix the scenery, and the caterer's men—you can't be too careful. 'Twouldn't do to leave a five-thousand-dollar diamond necklace lying around loose; everybody in town knows about that necklace, I guess."

"Do you suppose Mr. Potter really looks at all like a detective?"

J. B. laughed. "No. He cocks his hat over one eye, and acts that tough way, just to give the part a kind of snap—a little go, you know. But the only detective I ever knew was a very quiet, gentlemanly sort of fellow. We had a little trouble at the bank once, and had this chap—his name was Judd—there for a couple of weeks, in plain clothes, you know. He didn't look like Vidocq either—not a bit. He looked like—like—well, a nice young fellow clerking in a shoe-store, say."

"Fancy!"

The music achieved its final chord; and the stairs promptly filled with resting couples. Mrs. Gates came out of the parlour with an armful of gilt shepherds' crooks and wreaths of tissue-paper roses. She looked up at the long slant of young people, nodding and signalling; and went back to speak to the musicians. The "juhman" was about to begin.

"I do think it's too funny for any use," said Kitty Oldham across her late partner to the nearest girl, "the way Britannia throws herself at somebody's head. Simply monopolises him the whole time."

"Oh, they were just sitting out one dance," said the man with her, displaying an unexpected acuteness. "Never mind looking at me that way, Miss Kitty. I know whom you were talking about. J. B. just didn't want to dance it, I guess."

"No wonder. Self-preservation's the first law of nature," said Kitty with undaunted pertness.

"Funny they don't teach 'em to dance, on the other side, isn't it?"

"Oh, she thinks she's dancing," said Kitty, lazily scornful. "It's a delusion they all have, I suppose. J. B.'s the only man around big enough for her—except Gwynne, and he's tall, but he's too slim. He's dropped out of the play—did you know?"

"Why, no—what for?"

"I don't know. If he'd been here to-night, I'd have asked him. He just walked off, and nobody said anything, for fear of putting their foot in it. I guess there never was a thing of the kind yet, that there wasn't a lot of fighting about. It's bound to be that way, you know. Nobody will be on speaking-terms before it's over."

"Have they got someone to take his place?"

"I believe Joe McHenry is going to do Matilda, and they're going to leave out Joe's old part—it wasn't much anyway, and somebody or other can take his speeches. Pretty nearly every man in town that can sing or act at all is in it already, you know. Archie says he doesn't know what they'd do, if anyone were to be taken sick."

"But why do you suppose Gwynne——?"

"Goodness knows! It's a bother, we'd fixed up all the programmes with his name on, and there isn't time to make a whole new lot now. You can't tell anything about it—there's a queer streak in all the Gwynnes, you know."