of the metropolis; and if
she liked them, they would be invited to her annual ball, which took
place in January, and then for ever after their position would be
assured. Mrs. Devon's ball was the one great event of the social year;
about one thousand people were asked, while ten thousand disappointed
ones gnashed their teeth in outer darkness.

All of which threw Alice into a state of trepidation.

"Suppose we don't suit her!" she said.

To that the other replied that their way had been made smooth by Reggie
Mann, who was one of Mrs. Devon's favourites.

A century and more ago the founder of the Devon line had come to
America, and invested his savings in land on Manhattan Island. Other
people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after
generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until now
their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of dollars.
They were the richest old family in America, and the most famous; and
in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was centred all its
social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and formal life,
precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon her raised chair
of state, and she wore her jewels even at breakfast. She was the
arbiter of social destinies, and the breakwater against which the
floods of new wealth beat in vain. Reggie Mann told wonderful tales
about the contents of her enormous mail--about wives and daughters of
mighty rich men who flung themselves at her feet and pleaded abjectly
for her favour--who laid siege to her house for months, and intrigued
and pulled wires to get near her, and even bought the favour of her
servants! If Reggie might be believed, great financial wars had been
fought, and the stock-markets of the world convulsed more than once,
because of these social struggles; and women of wealth and beauty had
offered to sell themselves for the privilege which was so freely
granted to them.

They came to the old family mansion and rang the bell, and the solemn
butler ushered them past the grand staircase and into the front
reception-room to wait. Perhaps five minutes later he came in and
rolled back the doors, and they stood up, and beheld a withered old
lady, nearly eighty years of age, bedecked with diamonds and seated
upon a sort of throne. They approached, and Oliver introduced them, and
the old lady held out a lifeless hand; and then they sat down.

Mrs. Devon asked them a few questions as to ho