ng as
to interest the most notable bankers of the city in its safe and prompt
reinvestment.

This gentleman dined with us on one occasion at this period, when his
conference with my father intrenched on our late dinner-hour, and I
shall never forget the singular beauty of his face and expression, nor
the charm of his manner, as he sat at our board discoursing, with an
_abandon_ and witchery I have observed in no one else, on subjects of
art and letters, on men and manners, of nations past and present, until
hours fled like moments, and time seemed utterly forgotten in the
presence of geniality and genius. Then, starting gayly and suddenly to
his feet, he remembered an engagement, and sped away so abruptly that
his visit seemed to me but a vision breaking in on the monotony of our
lives, too bright to have been lasting.

Afterward, invitations came repeatedly to my father, for his grand
dinners and _levees_, from this potentate, for he _was_ a prince and a
leader in those days of a society that, more than any other I have
known, requires such leadership to make its conventionalities available;
but these were not accepted, though appreciated and gratefully
acknowledged. Nor could Mr. Bainrothe, with all his influence over him
(that rare influence that a worldly and efficient man wields over a shy
and retiring one unacquainted with the detail of affairs, and dependent
upon active assistance in their management), prevail upon him to break
through the monotonous routine of his life so far as to accept any one
of them. His church, the theatre, when a British star appeared, his
hearth and home--these were my father's hobbies and resources. Travel
and society abroad he equally shrank from and abjured, or the presence
of strange guests in his household circle.

"I will change all this, when I grow up, Mrs. Austin," I heard Evelyn
say, one day. "We shall have parties and pleasures then, like other
people, and, instead of masters and tedious old church humdrums, Mr.
Lodore and the like, you shall see beaux and belles dashing up to this
out-of-the-way place; and I will make papa build a ballroom, and we
shall have a band and supper once a month. You know he can afford any
thing he likes of that sort, and as for me--"

"Child, it will never be," she interrupted, shaking her head gravely.
"Mr. and Mrs. Monfort" (my father was again married then) "are too much
wedded to their own ways for that, and, besides, you and Miriam will no