rsty. Her hand was in her pocket; she was fumbling with the
little key that her sister had given her. "Ah, my dear young lady," he
said, clasping his hands a little, "if you could give me, in charity, a
glass of wine!"

Gertrude gave a smile and a little nod, and went quickly out of the
room. Presently she came back with a very large decanter in one hand
and a plate in the other, on which was placed a big, round cake with
a frosted top. Gertrude, in taking the cake from the closet, had had a
moment of acute consciousness that it composed the refection of which
her sister had thought that Mr. Brand would like to partake. Her kinsman
from across the seas was looking at the pale, high-hung engravings. When
she came in he turned and smiled at her, as if they had been old friends
meeting after a separation. "You wait upon me yourself?" he asked. "I am
served like the gods!" She had waited upon a great many people, but
none of them had ever told her that. The observation added a certain
lightness to the step with which she went to a little table where there
were some curious red glasses--glasses covered with little gold sprigs,
which Charlotte used to dust every morning with her own hands. Gertrude
thought the glasses very handsome, and it was a pleasure to her to know
that the wine was good; it was her father's famous madeira. Felix Young
thought it excellent; he wondered why he had been told that there was
no wine in America. She cut him an immense triangle out of the cake, and
again she thought of Mr. Brand. Felix sat there, with his glass in
one hand and his huge morsel of cake in the other--eating, drinking,
smiling, talking. "I am very hungry," he said. "I am not at all tired; I
am never tired. But I am very hungry."

"You must stay to dinner," said Gertrude. "At two o'clock. They will all
have come back from church; you will see the others."

"Who are the others?" asked the young man. "Describe them all."

"You will see for yourself. It is you that must tell me; now, about your
sister."

"My sister is the Baroness Munster," said Felix.

On hearing that his sister was a Baroness, Gertrude got up and walked
about slowly, in front of him. She was silent a moment. She was thinking
of it. "Why did n't she come, too?" she asked.

"She did come; she is in Boston, at the hotel."

"We will go and see her," said Gertrude, looking at him.

"She begs you will not!" the young man replied. "She sends you her love;
she sent