St. Margaret has forestalled me," said he gallantly, "for she has a
paradise of her own, it seems, to which she has admitted me."

And so they passed the evening pleasantly until the hour warned them
that it was time to go to the great Van Sueindell house. That mansion,
like all private houses in America, and the majority of modern dwellings
in other parts of the world, is built in that depraved style of
architecture which makes this age pre-eminent in the ugliness of brick
and stone. There is no possibility of criticism for such monstrosity, as
there also seems to be no immediate prospect of reform. Time, the
iron-fisted Nihilist, will knock them all down some day and bid mankind
begin anew. Meanwhile let us ignore what we cannot improve. Night, the
all-merciful, sometimes hides these excrescences from our sight, and
sometimes the moon, Nature's bravest liar, paints and moulds them into a
fugitive harmony. But in the broad day let us fix our eyes modestly on
the pavement beneath us, or turn them boldly to the sky, for if we look
to the right or the left we must see that which sickens the sense of
sight.

On the present occasion, however, nothing was to be seen of the house,
for the long striped canvas tent, stretching from the door to the
carriage, and lined with plants and servants, hid everything else from
view. There is probably no city in the world where the _business_ of
"entertaining" is so thoroughly done as in New York. There are many
places where it is more agreeable to be "entertained;" many where it is
done on a larger scale, for there is nothing in America so imposing as
the receptions at Embassies and other great houses in England and
abroad. To bring the matter into business form, since it is a matter of
business, let us say that nowhere do guests cost so much by the cubic
foot as in New York. Abroad, owing to the peculiar conditions of
court-life, many people are obliged to open their houses at stated
intervals. In America no one is under this necessity. If people begin to
"entertain" they do it because they have money, or because they have
something to gain by it, and they do it with an absolute regardlessness
of cost which is enough to startle the sober foreigner.

It may be in bad taste, but if we are to define what is good taste in
these days, and abide by it, we shall be terribly restricted. As an
exhibition of power, this enormous expenditure is imposing in the
extreme; though the imposing elemen