e discovered that
with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to become
homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because he was a
stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a shamelessly
extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs. Evans took up the
subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and kindly personage,
who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses, and flap-jacks, and
bread fried in bacon-grease, and similar sensible things, while her
chef was compelling her to eat _pate de foie gras_ in aspic, and
milk-fed guinea-chicks, and _biscuits glacees Tortoni_. Of course she
did not say that at dinner,--she made a game effort to play her
part,--with the result of at least one diverting experience for
Montague.

Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the
city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The men
here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly, "I've come
to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally amphibious!"

Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added,
"Don't you think so?" And he replied, with as little delay as possible,
that he had never really thought of it before.

It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon
him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady
Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you know
her?"

"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her.

"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable
slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?"

"Yes, I have," he said.

"And so utterly cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked
mother--she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that
she thought all men were naturally polygamous!"

Later on, Montague came to know "Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon,
sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly, "Why
in the world do you want to get into Society?" And the poor lady caught
her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing that he was in
earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and confessed. "It isn't
me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with the surrender went a
reversion to natural speech.) "It's Mary, and more particularly Anne."

They talked it over confidentially--which was a great relief to Mrs.
Sarey's soul, for she was cruelly lonely. So far as she was