table, Mr. Hilbrough rising as
the ladies passed out, as he had been instructed. When he and Millard
had resumed their seats the cigars were brought, but when Millard saw
that his host did not smoke he did not see why he should punish himself
with a cigar and a _tete-a-tete_ with Hilbrough, whom he could see any
day at the bank. So by agreement the sitting was soon cut short, and the
gentlemen followed the ladies to the drawing-room. Mrs. Hilbrough had
planned a conversation with Millard about her reception while Phillida
should be left to talk with Mr. Hilbrough. But Phillida's position had
been changed during dinner. Mrs. Hilbrough found a new card in her hand.
She drew Miss Callender into the talk about the reception, leaving her
husband to excuse himself, and to climb the stairs to the third floor,
as was his wont, to see that the children had gone to bed well and were
not quarreling, and to have a few cheery words with Jack and the smaller
ones before they went to sleep. Receptions were nothing to him: the beds
on the third floor contained the greater part of the world.

Millard was relieved to find that Mrs. Hilbrough proposed nothing more
ambitious than an evening reception. He commended her for beginning in
new surroundings in this way.

"You see, Mrs. Hilbrough," he said, "a reception seems to me more
flexible than a ball. It is, in a sense, more democratic. There are many
good people--people of some position--who do not care to attend a ball,
who would be out of place at a ball, indeed, which should be a very
fashionable assembly. The party with dancing can come after."

This commendation had an effect opposite to that intended. Mrs.
Hilbrough hadn't thought of a ball, and she now suspected that she was
going wrong. In proposing a reception she was imitating Mrs. Masters,
and she had fancied herself doing the most proper thing of all. To have
a reception called democratic, and treated as something comparatively
easy of achievement, disturbed her.

"If you think a reception is not the thing, Mr. Millard, I will follow
your advice. You see I only know Brooklyn, and if a reception is going
to compromise our position in the future I wish you would tell me. I am
afraid I can hardly accomplish even that."

But Millard again said that a reception was a very proper thing to begin
with. By degrees he drew out a statement of Mrs. Hilbrough's resources
for a reception, and he could not conceal from her the fact that