n East Fifteenth Street--queer place for people to live, isn't it,
Garry?--people who want anybody to come to their teas. I've got a
dressmaker lives over there somewhere; she's in Fifteenth Street,
anyhow, for I always drive there."

Jack devoured the letter. This was what he had been hoping for. He knew
the old gentleman would keep his word!

"Well, of course you'll go, Corinne?" he cried eagerly.

"Of course I'll do nothing of the kind. I think it's a great piece
of impudence. I've never heard of her. Because you had her brother
upstairs, that's no reason why--But that's just like these people. You
give them an inch and--"

Jack's cheeks flushed: "But, Corinne! She's offered you a
courtesy--asked you to her house, and--"

"I don't care; I'm not going! Would you, Garry?"

The son of the Collector hesitated for a moment. He had his own ideas of
getting on in the world. They were not Jack's--his, he knew, would never
succeed. And they were not exactly Corinne's--she was too particular.
The fence was evidently the best place for him.

"Would be rather a bore, wouldn't it?" he replied evasively, with a
laugh. "Lives up under the roof, I guess, wears a dyed wig, got
Cousin Mary Ann's daguerreotype on the mantle, and tells you how Uncle
Ephraim--"

The door opened and Jack's aunt swept in. She never walked, or ambled,
or stepped jauntily, or firmly, or as if she wanted to get anywhere in
particular; she SWEPT in, her skirts following meekly behind--half a
yard behind, sometimes.

Corinne launched the inquiry at her mother, even before she could return
Garry's handshake. "Who's Miss Grayson, mamma?"

"I don't know. Why, my child?"

"Well, she says she knows you. Met you in Washington."

"The only Miss Grayson I ever met in Washington, my dear, was an old
maid, the niece of the Secretary of State. She kept house for him after
his wife died. She held herself very high, let me tell you. A very grand
lady, indeed. But she must be an old woman now, if she is still living.
What did you say her first name was?"

Corinne took the open letter from Jack's hand. "Felicia... Yes,
Felicia."

"And what does she want?--money for some charity?" Almost everybody
she knew, and some she didn't, wanted money for some charity. She was
loosening her cloak as she spoke, Frederick standing by to relieve my
lady of her wraps.

"No; she's going to give a tea and wants us all to come. She's the
sister of that old man who came to se