or the house, where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long
driving gloves, and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass.

Dolly looked almost as young, and far prettier, than when the came to
the park, eleven years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had
learned to take things easily, and the old woman with the basket might
now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped
Mrs. Atherton of Brier Hill, in everything, and had the satisfaction of
knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and
well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate
friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas,
and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing, too, with _her_ million,
ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which
Doily's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party, and the
election which followed when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the
Peterkins, and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of
people above them, and when she heard that Mary Jane hail hired a
governess for her two children, Bill and Ann Eliza, she scoffed at the
airs assumed by _come-up_ people, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had
forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had
certainly forgotten the Langley life, and was to all intents and
purposes the great lady of the park, who held herself aloof from the
common herd, and taught her children to do the same.

She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of
disapprobation, which had not diminished as the day wore on and still
the child staid, and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her.

'Not that I would have allowed it, if she had been,' she said to
herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose
antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited
her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply
resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house had cried to
go in and play with her, but Mrs. Tracy had refused, and promised as an
equivalent a drive in the phaeton around the town. And it was for this
drive Dolly was preparing herself, when John came with the message that
she could not have the phaeton, as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry
home in it.

Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was
Frank's order; but on this occas