with the nap raised.

"He wants to kiss your hand, ma. Give it to him. No, the right one,
dearie."

"I--I'm much obliged, Marquis. I--well, for one little old woman like
me, I got now six sons and six daughters, each one big enough to carry
me off under his arm. Not?"

She was met with immediate acclaim from a large blond daughter-in-law,
her soft, expansive bosom swathed in old lace caught up with a great
jeweled lizard.

"Little old nothing, ma. I always say to Isadore you've got more energy
yet than the rest of the family put together."

"Ach, Dora, always you children like to make me think I been young yet."

But she was smilingly tremulous and pushed herself backward in her heavy
throne-like chair. A butler sprang, lifting it gently from her.

Immediately the great, disheveled table, brilliantly littered with
crystal, frumpled napkins, and a great centerpiece of fruits and
flowers, was in the confusion of disorganization.

Daughters-in-law and husbands moved up toward a pair of doors swung
heavily backward by two servants.

Mrs. Isadore Meyerburg pushed her real-lace bodice into place and
adjusted the glittering lizard. "Believe me," she said, exuding a sigh
and patting her bosom on the swell of that deep breath, "I ate too much,
but if I can't break my diet for the last engagement in the family, and
to nobility at that, when will I do it?"

"I should say so," replied Mrs. Rudolph Meyerburg, herself squirming to
rights in an elaborate bodice and wielding an unostentatious toothpick
behind the cup of her hand; "like I told Roody just now, if I take on a
pound to-day he can blame his sister."

"Say, I wish you'd look at the marquis kissing ma's hand again, will
you?"

"Look at ma get away with it too. You've got to hand it to them French,
they've got the manners all right. No wonder our swell Trixie tags after
them."

"Say, Becky shouldn't get manners yet with her looks and five hundred
thousand thrown in. I bet, if the truth is known, and since ma is going
to live over there with them, that there's a few extra thousand tacked
on too."

"Not if the court knows it! Like I told Roody this morning, she's
bringing a title into the family, but she's taking a big wad of the
Meyerburg money out of the country too."

"It is so, ain't it?"

Around her crowded Mrs. Meyerburg's five sons.

"Come with us, ma. We got a children's party up in the ballroom for
Aileen this afternoon, and then Trixie and I are