on and her people were of these, and
that she wondered sometimes during the brief days of her engagement what
it would be like to belong to the brilliant little world about her
that had its visiting list in London, Paris, or St. Petersburg, and was
immensely entertained by the gaucheries of the great ones of the earth.

Then came, with the most unexceptionable introductions, Miss Violet
Forde, from a Sloane Square address, London. She came leaning on the arm
of a brother, the only relative she had in the world, and so brilliant
was the form of these young people that it occurred to nobody to imagine
that it had the most precarious pecuniary foundation, must have faded
and shrivelled indeed, after another year or two of anything but
hospitality as generous as that of New York. Well-nourished and
undimmed, however, it concealed for them admirably the fact that it
was the hospitality they were after, and not the bracing climate or the
desire to see the fascinating Americans of London and Paris at home.
New York found them agreeable specimens of high-spirited young English
people, and played with them indefinitely. Miss Forde, when she sat
imperturbably on a cushion in the middle of the floor after dinner
and sang to a guitar the songs of Albert Chevalier, was an anomaly in
English decorum that was as pleasing to observe as it was amusing to
criticize.

The Americans she met delighted in drawing her out--it was a pastime
that took the lead at dinner-parties, to an extent which her hostess
often thought preposterous--and she responded with naivete and vigour,
perfectly aware that she was scoring all along the line. Upon many
charming people she made the impression that she was a type of the most
finished class of what they called 'English society girls,' that she
represented the best they could do over there in this direction. As
a matter of fact she might have sat to any of those 'black and white'
artists, who draw townish young women of London, saying cynical things
to young men in the weekly papers. That was her type, and if you look
for her picture there, you will see that her face was very accurately
oval, with eyes that knew their value, and other features that didn't
very much matter, except in so far as they expressed a very full
conception of the satisfactions of this life, and a wide philosophy as
to methods of obtaining them.

Frederick Prendergast was unacquainted with the popular pictures I
have mentioned, ha