e
serene plane of this delightful old woman of the world. By her
birthright she seemed to bridge the present and the past, and under her
spell the quaint-gabled Albany of another century rose again. Once
more Arcadian youth picnicked in the "bush" and coasted down Pinkster
Hill past the squat Dutch church; the Tontine Coffee House sprang from
dust, and through its doors walked Hamilton and Burr, Jerome Bonaparte,
and a comic-pathetic _emigre_ marquis, who in poverty awaited the
greater Bonaparte's downfall, cherishing his order of Saint Louis and
powdering his poll with Indian meal; the Livingstons and Clintons
divided the land between them; Van Buren and the Regency came to power.

There was more of this when the dinner had ended, and they lingered in
the library over their coffee and Mrs. Van Dam's priceless collection
of relics of the time of the royal province and the yet earlier New
Netherland.

"A plague on the reception!" exclaimed the governor in the carriage,
when the good nights had finally been said. "I could have talked with
her till morning."

There was a lively stir and bustle about the entrance of the Beverwyck
Club as they approached, which Cora took to be that of late-comers like
themselves. She would have preferred that she be conspicuously the
last,--the climax. Seen nearer, the flurry was peculiar. If the idea
were not preposterous, she could believe that people were actually
leaving the club--leaving before they met the governor in whose honor
they assembled--leaving before _she_ came!

"Your watch, Ross, your watch," she exclaimed suddenly.

"I did not wear it."

She bethought her of a recently acquired carriage clock whose face the
lights of a passing trolley made plain. She looked, gasped, and looked
again in horrid fascination. The punctilious Beverwyck Club had
decreed that its reception should end at eleven, and the decrees of the
Beverwyck Club were rigidly enforced. The carriage clock pointed its
inexorable hands to a quarter past.

CHAPTER IV

Thenceforth Cora Shelby's respect for the fearless strategist in
Quality Row verged upon awe. If Mrs. Teunis Van Dam now deigned to
assist at one of the weekly house-openings, the occasion savored of an
aroma which the united patronage of Mrs. Tommy Kidder and the ladies of
the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, the controller, the
treasurer, and the entire bench of the Court of Appeals could not
exhale. Cora made