he was
taking her to the Duchess's--didn't Dora remember? To the _bal
blanc_--the _sauterie de jeunes filles_.

'I thought we should be called,' said Raymond, as he followed Effie;
and he remarked that perhaps Madame de Brives would find something
suitable at the Duchess's.

'I don't know. Mamma would be very particular,' the girl rejoined; and
this was said simply, sympathetically, without the least appearance of
deflection from that loyalty which Raymond deplored.

IV

'You must come to us on the 17th; we expect to have a few people and
some good music,' Cousin Maria said to him before he quitted the house;
and he wondered whether, the 17th being still ten days off, this might
not be an intimation that they could abstain from his society until
then. He chose, at any rate, not to take it as such, and called several
times in the interval, late in the afternoon, when the ladies would be
sure to have come in.

They were always there, and Cousin Maria's welcome was, for each
occasion, maternal, though when he took leave she made no allusion to
future meetings--to his coming again; but there were always other
visitors as well, collected at tea round the great fire of logs, in the
friendly, brilliant drawing-room where the luxurious was no enemy to the
casual and Mrs. Temperly's manner of dispensing hospitality recalled to
our young man somehow certain memories of his youthful time: visits in
New England, at old homesteads flanked with elms, where a talkative,
democratic, delightful farmer's wife pressed upon her company rustic
viands in which she herself had had a hand. Cousin Maria enjoyed the
services of a distinguished _chef_, and delicious _petits fours_ were
served with her tea; but Raymond had a sense that to complete the
impression hot home-made gingerbread should have been produced.

The atmosphere was suffused with the presence of Madame de Brives. She
was either there or she was just coming or she was just gone; her name,
her voice, her example and encouragement were in the air. Other ladies
came and went--sometimes accompanied by gentlemen who looked worn out,
had waxed moustaches and knew how to talk--and they were sometimes
designated in the same manner as Madame de Brives; but she remained the
Marquise _par excellence_, the incarnation of brilliancy and renown. The
conversation moved among simple but civilised topics, was not dull and,
considering that it consisted largely of personalities, was