ne beautifully, but it
looks a little bare to old-fashioned eyes," Mrs. Welland had explained,
with a conciliatory side-glance at her future son-in-law.

"Old-fashioned eyes? I hope you don't mean mine, my dear? I like all
the novelties," said the ancestress, lifting the stone to her small
bright orbs, which no glasses had ever disfigured. "Very handsome,"
she added, returning the jewel; "very liberal. In my time a cameo set
in pearls was thought sufficient. But it's the hand that sets off the
ring, isn't it, my dear Mr. Archer?" and she waved one of her tiny
hands, with small pointed nails and rolls of aged fat encircling the
wrist like ivory bracelets. "Mine was modelled in Rome by the great
Ferrigiani. You should have May's done: no doubt he'll have it done,
my child. Her hand is large--it's these modern sports that spread the
joints--but the skin is white.--And when's the wedding to be?" she
broke off, fixing her eyes on Archer's face.

"Oh--" Mrs. Welland murmured, while the young man, smiling at his
betrothed, replied: "As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me
up, Mrs. Mingott."

"We must give them time to get to know each other a little better,
mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of
reluctance; to which the ancestress rejoined: "Know each other?
Fiddlesticks! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let
the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off
the wine. Marry them before Lent; I may catch pneumonia any winter
now, and I want to give the wedding-breakfast."

These successive statements were received with the proper expressions
of amusement, incredulity and gratitude; and the visit was breaking up
in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess
Olenska, who entered in bonnet and mantle followed by the unexpected
figure of Julius Beaufort.

There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies, and Mrs.
Mingott held out Ferrigiani's model to the banker. "Ha! Beaufort,
this is a rare favour!" (She had an odd foreign way of addressing men
by their surnames.)

"Thanks. I wish it might happen oftener," said the visitor in his easy
arrogant way. "I'm generally so tied down; but I met the Countess
Ellen in Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home
with her."

"Ah--I hope the house will be gayer, now that Ellen's here!" cried Mrs.
Mingott with a glorious effrontery. "Sit down--sit d