e to have walked with him. Oh, what nonsense I am talking!"
and she grew red, and jumped up and looked out of the window.

Then they all talked about something else, and the visit closed with a
promise that Minola and Mary Blanchet would present themselves at one
of Mrs. Money's little weekly receptions, out of season, which was to
take place the following evening; and after which Mrs. Money hoped to
decoy them into staying for the night. Mary Blanchet went to bed that
night in an ecstasy of happiness, only disturbed now and then by a
torturing doubt as to whether Mrs. Money would be equally willing to
receive her if she had known that she had been the keeper of the
court-house at Keeton; and whether she ought not to forewarn Mrs. Money
of the fact; and whether she ought not, at least, to call Minola's
attention to the question, and submit to her judgment.

CHAPTER IX.

IN SOCIETY.

Mr. Money was not a very regular visitor at his wife's little
receptions out of the season. In the season, and when they had larger
and more formal gatherings, he showed himself as much as was fitting
and regular; for many of the guests then were virtually his guests,
persons who desired especially to see him, and of whose topics he could
talk. A good many foreign visitors were there usually--scientific men,
and railway contractors, and engineers, and shipbuilders, from Germany,
Italy, and Russia, and of course the United States, who looked upon Mr.
Money as a person of great importance and distinction, and would not
have cared anything about most of Mrs. Money's guests.

The foreigners were curiously right and wrong. Mr. Money was a person
of importance and distinction. Every Londoner who knew anything knew
his name, and knew that he was clever and distinguished. If a Russian
stranger of rank were dining with a Cabinet minister, and were to
express a wish to see and know Mr. Money, the minister would think the
wish quite natural, and would take his friend down to the lobby of the
House of Commons, and make him acquainted with Mr. Money. We have all
been foreigners ourselves somewhere, and we know how our longing to see
some celebrity, as we suppose, of the land we are visiting, some one
whose name was familiar to us in England, has been occasionally checked
and chilled by our finding that in the celebrity's own city no one
seems to have heard of him. There are only too many celebrities of this
kind which shine, like the moon, f