ting
in the void, showed faint symptoms of developing an outline; and in this
endeavour she was actively seconded by Mr. Melville Stancy. It was Mr.
Stancy, a man of large resounding presence, suggestive of convivial
occasions and of a chivalry finding expression in "first-night" boxes and
thousand dollar bonbonnieres, who had transplanted Mrs. Hatch from the
scene of her first development to the higher stage of hotel life in the
metropolis. It was he who had selected the horses with which she had
taken the blue ribbon at the Show, had introduced her to the photographer
whose portraits of her formed the recurring ornament of "Sunday
Supplements," and had got together the group which constituted her social
world. It was a small group still, with heterogeneous figures suspended
in large unpeopled spaces; but Lily did not take long to learn that its
regulation was no longer in Mr. Stancy's hands. As often happens, the
pupil had outstripped the teacher, and Mrs. Hatch was already aware of
heights of elegance as well as depths of luxury beyond the world of the
Emporium. This discovery at once produced in her a craving for higher
guidance, for the adroit feminine hand which should give the right turn
to her correspondence, the right "look" to her hats, the right succession
to the items of her MENUS. It was, in short, as the regulator of a
germinating social life that Miss Bart's guidance was required; her
ostensible duties as secretary being restricted by the fact that Mrs.
Hatch, as yet, knew hardly any one to write to.

The daily details of Mrs. Hatch's existence were as strange to Lily as
its general tenor. The lady's habits were marked by an Oriental indolence
and disorder peculiarly trying to her companion. Mrs. Hatch and her
friends seemed to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No
definite hours were kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day
flowed into one another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements,
so that one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner
was often merged in the noisy after-theatre supper which prolonged Mrs.
Hatch's vigil till daylight.

Through this jumble of futile activities came and went a strange throng
of hangers-on--manicures, beauty-doctors, hair-dressers, teachers of
bridge, of French, of "physical development": figures sometimes
indistinguishable, by their appearance, or by Mrs. Hatch's relation to
them, from the visitors constituting h