s interrupted in a way that gave some idea of the old times, when
Venice was the capital of pleasure, and everything yielded there to the
great business of amusement. Mrs. Elmore had found it impossible to get
a pair of fine shoes finished until after the ball; a dress which Lily
had ordered could not be made; their laundress had given notice that for
the present all fluting and quilling was out of the question; one
already heard that the chief Venetian perruquier and his assistants were
engaged for every moment of the forty-eight hours before the ball, and
that whoever had him now must sit up with her hair dressed for two
nights at least. Mrs. Elmore had a fanatical faith in these stories; and
while agreeing with her husband, as a matter of principle, that mask
balls were wrong, and that it was in bad taste for a foreigner to insult
the sorrow of Venice by a festivity of the sort at such a time, she had
secretly indulged longings which the sight of Hoskins's invitation
rendered almost insupportable. Her longings were not for herself, but
for Lily: if she could provide Lily with the experience of a masquerade
in Venice, she could overpay all the kindnesses that the Mayhews had
ever done her. It was an ambition neither ignoble nor ungenerous, and it
was with a really heroic effort that she silenced it in passing the
invitation to her husband, and simply saying to Hoskins, "Of course you
will go."

"I don't know about that," he answered. "That's the point I want some
advice on. You see this document calls for a lady to fill out the bill."

"Oh," returned Mrs. Elmore, "you will find some Americans at the hotels.
You can take them."

"Well, now, I was thinking, Mrs. Elmore, that I should like to take
you."

"Take me!" she echoed tremulously. "What an idea! I'm too old to go to
mask balls."

"You don't look it," suggested Hoskins.

"Oh, I couldn't go," she sighed. "But it's very, very kind."

Hoskins dropped his head, and gave the low chuckle with which he
confessed any little bit of humbug. "Well, you _or_ Miss Lily."

Lily had retired to the other side of the room as soon as the parley
about the invitation began. Without asking or seeing, she knew what was
in the note, and now she felt it right to make a feint of not knowing
what Mrs. Elmore meant when she asked, "What do _you_ say, Lily?"

When the question was duly explained to her, she answered languidly, "I
don't know. Do you think I'd better?"

"I might as