all. People were by this time quite
scattered, and many of those who had so liberally manifested in calls,
in cards, in evident sincerity about visits, later on, over the land,
had positively passed in music out of sight; whether as members, these
latter, more especially, of Mrs. Lowder's immediate circle or as
members of Lord Mark's--our friends being by this time able to make the
distinction. The general pitch had thus, decidedly, dropped, and the
occasions still to be dealt with were special and few. One of these,
for Milly, announced itself as the doctor's call already mentioned, as
to which she had now had a note from him: the single other, of
importance, was their appointed leave-taking--for the shortest
separation--in respect to Mrs. Lowder and Kate. The aunt and the niece
were to dine with them alone, intimately and easily--as easily as
should be consistent with the question of their afterwards going on
together to some absurdly belated party, at which they had had it from
Aunt Maud that they would do well to show. Sir Luke was to make his
appearance on the morrow of this, and in respect to that complication
Milly had already her plan.

The night was, at all events, hot and stale, and it was late enough by
the time the four ladies had been gathered in, for their small session,
at the hotel, where the windows were still open to the high balconies
and the flames of the candles, behind the pink shades--disposed as for
the vigil of watchers--were motionless in the air in which the season
lay dead. What was presently settled among them was that Milly, who
betrayed on this occasion a preference more marked than usual, should
not hold herself obliged to climb that evening the social stair,
however it might stretch to meet her, and that, Mrs. Lowder and Mrs.
Stringham facing the ordeal together, Kate Croy should remain with her
and await their return. It was a pleasure to Milly, ever, to send Susan
Shepherd forth; she saw her go with complacency, liked, as it were, to
put people off with her, and noted with satisfaction, when she so moved
to the carriage, the further denudation--a markedly ebbing tide--of her
little benevolent back. If it wasn't quite Aunt Maud's ideal, moreover,
to take out the new American girl's funny friend instead of the new
American girl herself, nothing could better indicate the range of that
lady's merit than the spirit in which--as at the present hour for
instance--she made the best of the min