allowed us to sit
down and look at ourselves."

"I cannot excuse cake-walking off the stage, among civilized people,"
interpolated Miss Lavinia, catching the word but not the connection, and
realizing that, as hostess, she had inconsiderately lost the thread of
the conversation. "It appeals to me as the expression of physical
exuberance of a lower race, and for people of our grade of intelligence
to imitate it is certainly lowering! The more successfully it is carried
out the worse it is!"

Miss Lavinia spoke so fiercely that everybody laughed but Sylvia, who
coloured painfully, and Horace Bradford deftly changed the subject in the
lull that followed.

* * * * *

The men did not care to be left alone with their cigars and coffee, so we
lingered in the dining-room. Suddenly a shrieking whistle sounded in the
street, and the rapid clatter of hoofs made us listen, while Evan rushed
to the door, seizing his hat on the way.

"Only the fire engines," said Miss Lavinia; "you would soon be used to
them if you lived here; the engine house is almost around the corner."

"Don't you ever go after them?" I asked, without thinking, because
to Evan and me going to fires is one of the standard attractions of
our New York.

"Barbara, child, don't be absurd. What should I do traipsing after
an engine?"

"Yet a good fire is a very exciting spectacle. I once had the habit of
going," said Martin Cortright, emerging from a cloud of cigar smoke. "I
remember when Barnum's Museum was burned my father and I ran to the fire
together and stayed out, practically, all night."

More whistling and a fresh galloping of hoofs indicated that there was a
second call, and the engines from up town were answering. I began to tap
my feet restlessly, and Miss Lavinia noticed it.

"Don't hesitate to go if you wish to," she said. At the same moment Evan
dashed back, calling: "It's a fire on the river front, a lumber yard;
plenty of work ahead, with little danger and a wonderful spectacle. Why
can we not all go to see it, for it's only half a dozen blocks away?
Bundle up, though, it's bitterly cold."

Horace Bradford sprang to his feet and Sylvia was halfway upstairs and
fairly out of her evening gown when Miss Lavinia made up her mind to go
also, Evan's words having the infection of a stampede.

"Don't forget the apples," I called to Evan as I followed my hostess.

"The shops and stands are closed, I'm afraid," he c