eau monde_--a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird,
with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How
simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt
somewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests asking
leave to bring along her niece who was making her a few weeks' visit. As
a matter of course, however, she returned answer to bring the young lady
and welcome.

Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I invited
him to make his toilet in mine, and indeed, wanting him to create a
favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_., tying his cravat and
teasing the divinity-student look out of his side hair. My little dandy
Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to
button his jacket for him so that it showed his shirt studs "like
a man's," Count d'Orsay could not have felt a greater sense of his
sufficiency for all the demands of the gay world.

When we reached the parlor we found Pa and Ma Lovegrove already
receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old
married couples which, after paying their devoirs, fell in two like
unriveted scissors, the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa and the
ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such questions as
severally concerned them, such as "The way gold closed" and "How the
children were."

Besides the old married people there were several old young men, of
distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect, who, having nothing in
common with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to band
themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the arch
pillars or appeared to be considering whether on the whole it would not
be feasible and best to sit down on the centre-table. These subsisted
upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional chance to
throw them by rapid sorties of conversation--became galvanically active
the moment they were punched up and fell flat the moment the punching
was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow,
dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should drop
into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful with
his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into
action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu
bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, the
photograph alb