ngs ranged from scorn
to despair, commenting in loud whispers upon those of his sex to whom
the terpsichorean art came more naturally. Upon one Algernon Cartwright,
for example, whose striking likeness to the Van Dyck portrait of a young
king had been more than once commented upon by his elders, and whose
velveteen suits enhanced the resemblance. Algernon, by the way, was
the favourite male pupil of Mr. Meeker; and, on occasions, Algernon and
Honora were called upon to give exhibitions for the others, the sight of
which filled George with contemptuous rage. Algernon danced altogether
too much with Honora,--so George informed his cousin.

The simple result of George's protests was to make Honora dance with
Algernon the more, evincing, even at this period of her career, a
commendable determination to resent dictation. George should have lived
in the Middle Ages, when the spirit of modern American womanhood was as
yet unborn. Once he contrived, by main force, to drag her out into the
hall.

"George," she said, "perhaps, if you'd let me alone perhaps I'd like you
better."

"Perhaps," he retorted fiercely, "if you wouldn't make a fool of
yourself with those mother's darlings, I'd like you better."

"George," said Honora, "learn to dance."

"Never!" he cried, but she was gone. While hovering around the door he
heard Mrs. Hayden's voice.

"Unless I am tremendously mistaken, my dear," that lady was remarking
to Mrs. Dwyer, whose daughter Emily's future millions were powerless to
compel youths of fourteen to dance with her, although she is now happily
married, "unless I am mistaken, Honora will have a career. The child
will be a raving beauty. And she has to perfection the art of managing
men."

"As her father had the art of managing women," said Mrs. Dwyer. "Dear
me, how well I remember Randolph! I would have followed him to--to
Cheyenne."

Mrs. Hayden laughed. "He never would have gone to Cheyenne, I imagine,"
she said.

"He never looked at me, and I have reason to be profoundly thankful for
it," said Mrs. Dwyer.

Virginia Hayden bit her lip. She remembered a saying of Mrs. Brice,
"Blessed are the ugly, for they shall not be tempted."

"They say that poor Tom Leffingwell has not yet finished paying his
debts," continued Mrs. Dwyer, "although his uncle, Eleanor Hanbury's
father, cancelled what Randolph had had from him in his will. It was
twenty-five thousand dollars. James Hanbury, you remember, had him
appoint