t butler, whose
surname--and apparently his only name--was Jenks, which was always
pronounced with ever so slight a tendency toward him of the Horse
Marines. And the third, who, like Miss Wardrop, still retained
possession of the family mansion, was Mr. Augustus Lispenard, bachelor,
aged--in the morning--nearly eighty, although later in the day, when
the ichor in his veins began to course more briskly, his appearance was
that of an uncommonly well-preserved man of sixty or thereabouts. His
residence adjoined that of Miss Wardrop, but there had never been any
intimacy between the two households. For this there were a number of
reasons, but the paramount one was the fact that Mr. Lispenard was
descended from one of the oldest houses among the Knickerbockers, and
as such it was extremely difficult for him to become aware of any one
not sprung with equal selectness. The Wardrops had arrived on the
Square at the comparatively recent period of Miss Mary's babyhood--and
even now Miss Mary was only sixty or so.

Miss Helen Maitland remembered very well the occasion of her first
meeting with the distinguished personage who lived next door. It had
occurred on the first visit she had made her aunt, when she was but a
small girl, yet Helen had found few things in after years to etch
themselves more sharply upon her recollection. It had been in the
holiday season, and, Helen's mother having been sent South by the
inclemencies of the Boston weather, the child had been left with Miss
Wardrop over the Christmas time. On New Year's Day, wide-eyed, she had
beheld the elaborate, old-world, decorous preparations made by Jenks
under the eye of his mistress, and with delight she had learned that,
while she could not--nor indeed did she wish to--attend the New Year's
reception herself, she was to be allowed a seat of vantage above stairs
where part, and the most interesting part, of the reception hall lay
open to her view.

Miss Wardrop rigidly preserved the old custom as to New Year's
calls--preserved even the old blue punch-bowl, which Jenks filled with
a decoction of haunting and peculiar excellence; and the dress wherein
the hostess received had done duty on more New Years' Days than its
owner liked always to recall.

Peering down through the mahogany railings that fenced her eyrie from
the world, the youthful Miss Maitland had watched, starry-eyed, a
function which in essentials had not altered in very many years. Its
hostess