the leafy grove in
which stood the house where she was born, and Mrs. Hilbrough there had
grown up a friendship in spite of the difference in age and
temperament--a friendship that had survived the shock of prosperity.
Lately the Callenders had found it prudent to remove to their house
situate in the region near Second Avenue below Fourteenth Street, a
quarter which, having once been fashionable, abides now in the merest
twilight of its former grandeur. The letting of the upper rooms of the
house was a main source of income.

Born in Siam, bred in a family pervaded with religious and propagandist
ideas, and having led a half-recluse life, Phillida Callender did not
seem to Mrs. Hilbrough just the sort of person to entertain a man of the
world.

When dinner was announced Millard did give Mrs. Hilbrough his arm, and
Phillida was startled and amused, when Mr. Hilbrough, after pausing an
instant to remember which of his stout arms he was to offer, presented
his left elbow. Despite much internal levity and external clumsiness,
Hilbrough played his _role_ to the satisfaction of his anxious wife, and
Phillida looked at him inquiringly after she was seated as though to
discover what transformation had taken place in him.

Millard could not but feel curious about the fine-looking, dark young
woman opposite him. But with his unfailing sense of propriety he gave
the major part of his attention to the elder lady, and, without uttering
one word of flattery, he contrived, by listening well, and by an almost
undivided attention to her when he spoke, to make Mrs. Hilbrough very
content with herself, her dinner, and her guest. This is the sort of
politeness not acquired in dancing-school nor learned in books of
decorum; it is art, and of all the fine arts perhaps the one that gives
the most substantial pleasure to human beings in general. Even Hilbrough
was pleased with Millard's appreciation of Mrs. Hilbrough; to think well
of Jenny was an evidence of sound judgment, like the making of a
prudent investment.

Meantime Millard somewhat furtively observed Miss Callender. From the
small contributions she made to the table-talk, she seemed, to him,
rather out of the common run. Those little touches of inflection and
gesture, which one woman in society picks up from another, and which are
the most evanescent bubbles of fashion, were wanting in her, and this
convinced him that she was not accustomed to see much of the world. On
the other