elessly, glided across the room and became lost
in a minute examination of the dress laid out on the bed.

With a supple twist Undine slipped from Mrs. Heeny's hold.

"Engaged? Mercy, yes! Didn't you know? To the Prince of Wales. I broke
it off because I wouldn't live in the Tower."

Mrs. Spragg, lifting the dress cautiously over her arm, advanced with a
reassured smile.

"I s'pose Undie'll go to Europe now," she said to Mrs. Heeny.

"I guess Undie WILL!" the young lady herself declared. "We're going to
sail right afterward.--Here, mother, do be careful of my hair!" She
ducked gracefully to slip into the lacy fabric which her mother held
above her head. As she rose Venus-like above its folds there was a tap
on the door, immediately followed by its tentative opening.

"Mabel!" Undine muttered, her brows lowering like her father's; and
Mrs. Spragg, wheeling about to screen her daughter, addressed herself
protestingly to the half-open door.

"Who's there? Oh, that YOU, Mrs. Lipscomb? Well, I don't know as you
CAN--Undie isn't half dressed yet--"

"Just like her--always pushing in!" Undine murmured as she slipped her
arms into their transparent sleeves.

"Oh, that don't matter--I'll help dress her!" Mrs. Lipscomb's large
blond person surged across the threshold. "Seems to me I ought to lend a
hand to-night, considering I was the one that introduced them!"

Undine forced a smile, but Mrs. Spragg, her soft wrinkles deepening with
resentment, muttered to Mrs. Heeny, as she bent down to shake out the
girl's train: "I guess my daughter's only got to show herself--"

The first meeting with old Mr. Dagonet was less formidable than Undine
had expected. She had been once before to the house in Washington
Square, when, with her mother, she had returned Mrs. Marvell's
ceremonial visit; but on that occasion Ralph's grandfather had not
been present. All the rites connected with her engagement were new and
mysterious to Undine, and none more so than the unaccountable necessity
of "dragging"--as she phrased it--Mrs. Spragg into the affair. It was an
accepted article of the Apex creed that parental detachment should be
completest at the moment when the filial fate was decided; and to find
that New York reversed this rule was as puzzling to Undine as to her
mother. Mrs. Spragg was so unprepared for the part she was to play
that on the occasion of her visit to Mrs. Marvell her helplessness had
infected Undine, and their half-hour