do you give yourselves. As for Kitty Farnum, she had been asked in marriage by the Earl already; and had refused him twice.

CHAPTER XXV.

FLOSSIE ENJOYS HERSELF.

FLOSSIE GOWER lay idly upon her couch; it was her reception-day. She was waiting for the monotonous round of callers; and, while she waited, she gave herself to reminiscences. It was not usual for her to ply her memory so hard; but to-day, thinking of her whole life, and planning her campaign to Russia, all the events of her career passed in review before her. Her dainty morning dress curled away from the throat, and rippled gracefully, in a cascade of laces, over to the ground; simple and pure as any Endymion might clothe his dream in. The neck was white as ever; but the face had a wearied look the world had never seen, a pout of unheroic discontent, like any other woman's who was old and out of humor. And yet our heroine was telling to herself her triumphs, like beads.

She had early learned that she was rich, and thus had quickly found that riches were, alone, unsatisfying. No pedant moralist was more sure of this than she. But there they parted; while the moralist might prate of other worlds, or the love of humanity, Flossie was a positivist. No unknown world should drag her, Saturn-like, from her chosen orbit, and bid her leave her balls, her troops of male admirers, for nunneries or the domestic fireside. Unknowables might be disregarded: she knew no other world than this; and as for the love of humanity, she sought it for herself.

what else is her whole training, her education, the lessons we read to her of history? You may talk, and raise statues, in your female colleges, of Princess Idas and Corinnes; but it is Helen, Cleopatra, Heloise, who have left their woman's mark upon the world; and they are women enough, yet, these Vassar girls, to know it.

Still, it was some years before Flossie took her natural course and found in men's admiration her own highest reward. She had seen so much of men, her brother and his friends, in her early youth, that perhaps she had a little contempt for an animal so easily tamed, so soon domesticated. Whether she had yet found the king of the forest in her Boston Paris, we must leave to the reader.

Perhaps the earlier battles and campaigns, the Italys and Marengos, were the best, after all. Yet they were so easy! Poor Lucie had been such easy prey, even to a Nantucket neophyte! And to conquer the world of New York scarce justified a Corsican lieutenant's triumph. To trample on the patrician matron, and dazzle the jewels from Cornelia herself, was hardly harder. she even, in her wealthy way, had tried to serve the Lord; but found that fruitless, too. A fashionable ritual was all she had retained.

Then

But it is a woman's carrière to work her will and worth through men. And

ple Congressmen, and made herself a model to their wives.

Mrs. Gower was at home, this afternoon; and she rose and swept her robes to the adjoining dressing-room for another gown; in this one she was visible only to her maids, her maker, and her husband. It was five or ten minutes when she came back; her pout was gone, and in its place a smile-her pas de fascination as it were. She graciously beamed upon the two young girls who had come to make their dinner-call upon her, and was graciously pleased even to apologize for keeping them waiting. And their hearts were won by her at once they were the very poor descendants of one of the very oldest pre-revolutionary families-and they talked enthusiastically about her, going home, and wondered if it could really be true what the world said about her and that Mr. Wemyss from Boston. They were stylishly dressed and poor, and waiting to be married too.

Then came in Mrs. James De Witt, née Duval, just made a matron and fresh from a wedding-journey which had proved somewhat slow to her; Strephon and Chloe did not go on wedding journeys, I suppose; it was Helen and Paris began the fashion. Then Mrs. Malgam came in; and Flossie had her usual velvet battle with her dear enemy and rival friend. Mrs. Gower envied her her stupid youth, and silly red cheeks. Shall I go and leave the field with her? she thought. But the field would be hers, anyhow, in a few years.

Then there came in two prying matrons, of those whom Flossie had defeated in the world's esteem, so many years ago. They had lived to see their fiats disregarded, and their receptionrooms depleted, and their daughters put out and their sons dazzled, all by this little Flossie Starbuck; and they loved her accordingly. Would their hour of triumph never come again? Flossie wondered why they came to-day; they had not been to see her, save in the most symbolical of paste-board calls, since three months after her marriage. But they had never, since that first triumphant season, dared to question her divine right, by wit and beauty and style, to rule. Could it be that they really meant

to bury the hatchet and surrender unconditionally? Or did they scent, like envious ravens, her coming overthrow? She was indifferently polite to them; but made little effort to conceal that she was bored.

Dear me, will a man never come? Mrs. Gower rose, when they had gone, and pressed her feverish brow against the mirror. How marked the wrinkles were beneath the eyes! Men's voices were heard at last, and Flossie turned her back to the window. It was only a silly fellow, an artist, whom Mrs. Gower had made, and who now presumed upon it; and with him a dancing boy. The boy was nice enough at germans; and was at least a gentleman, but the other was only a swell, which even Flossie Gower realized to be a different thing. Genius soars above birth, so Van Smeer disowned his mother; but he preferred to be known as a gentleman rather than as an artist, and only painted the portraits of his rich fair friends carelessly, à la Congreve, and by way of flirtation, as it were. Moreover, he was a Jew.

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It was fun for Flossie to snub this man, and see his color change. Mrs. Wilton Hay had come in, the woman to whom Flossie had suspected Van Smeer of transferring his incense. "I have been thinking for some time of setting up an establishment in England," said he to Mrs. Hay, who was going back. My friend Lord Footlight is by way of having a sort of historical pageant in his theatre at his place in Surrey, and is very keen to have me come." To which Mrs. Hay made no reply, but Mrs. Gower did. "Do, Mr. Van Smeer," she said; "I should think her native air would do your poor mother so much good."

Van Smeer turned livid and ugly, but had to turn and smile to Kitty Farnum, who entered then, for Kitty was said to be that season's card. "Who was his mother?" whispered Mrs. Hay. "A Jewish ballet-girl," said Flossie in reply, and Van Smeer knew she did, and had to leave her unavenged. But I know not what he said to Mrs. Hay, when those two left together.

Mahlon Blewitt came in. He represented yet another period in Mrs. Gower's life, and she had been his Beatrice. But this Dante had been born in West

ern Ohio, and she had taught him a profound disbelief in all divine comedies, the Inferno even with the rest. He had come from his father's vast wheat-fields and the infinite prairies to New York, full of dreams of Shelley and of Chatterton; and Mrs. Gower had taken him up. Then he had gone back from her to his dreams. But he had really fancied him in love with her, and somehow her presence had remained with him and made his dreams absurd. Now he was a man of fashion, and turned his white ties more carefully than the sonnets he still peddled in large quantities to all the magazines; and he cynically talked about his country's decadence like any Caryl Wemyss, whom he chiefly envied, and of whose verses he wrote bitter re

views upon the sly. Had he really loved his clever patroness, the Inferno at least might have been left him to do; but he knew now that he had not loved her-only his dreams had seemed a poorer thing since Flossie Gower had shared them. The Polish minister came in; he knew his Flossie well and liked her much; he had seen women something like her in continental courts, but known none so bright, so good-natured, or half so free from danger. With him was young Harvey Washburn, a civilservice-reformer who had been sent to Congress to reform the world, and whom Von Hillersdorf was forming for it. Flossie would have liked to go to Washington, and have political power, and vulgarize that too; but there the mighty middle class control, who did not understand her; by the time they do, perhaps, the myriads who make no play of life will have their say, and break her, with other butterflies. Poor Flossie! she does not amount to much, after all, in all America; and is angrily conscious of it.

And now comes in our hero, Arthur Holyoke; no one, even Von Hillersdorf, is more perfect a man of the world than he. Well he places his bow and smile, his outspoken compliment here, his whispered word of adoration there; his coat is as well cut as Jimmy De Witt's, who has also come, some time later than his bride. But no one of these is earnest, thinks Flossie, and is bored again, and glad when they all go, and Mr. Kil

lian Van Kull appears. Here at last is her peer, one who can understand her. Van Kull is a frank libertine; and she likes him for it; he does not play with foils; he is a viveur, like the puissant Guy Livingstone who was the hero that her youth adored. Mamie Livingstone, by the way, has come in too, and gone out with Charlie Townley. Charlie has lately had to present to Flossie his partner's lady, Mrs. Tamms, and her marriageable daughters; and Mrs. Gower will have a new pleasure to-morrow, when she meets and cuts them, driving in the Park.

Killian stays some time; there is a dark devil in his eye to-day, and Mrs. Gower thinks his pale face never looked so handsome. When Mr. Wemyss is announced, he rises with a slight smile, and he too goes away.

Mrs. Gower is rude to Wemyss; she throws herself upon a sofa, and has the migraine; he assumes his devotional manner and makes bold to take her hand. She draws it away impatiently. "Have you a headache? says he. "I hoped you would let me go to drive with you.'

The carriage is ordered; the pony carriage that Mrs. Gower drives herself. He gets into it, and she after him and takes the reins. It is her whim to have no footman behind them; and Caryl does not dare remonstrate, though he thinks of it. He supposes she is going to the Park; but she turns down Thirty-fourth Street and drives toward the East River. They come to the ferry; and she sends Wemyss out to get the ticket. "Wherever are you going?" says he, returning.

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Why? Do you think I am going to elope with you?" She says it with a slight smile; and he is silent.

They come to the Long Island shore; and she rattles up the hill and drives familiarly through some narrow, squalid streets, where the air is not pleasant to breathe and the dank entries of the close brick houses swarm with half naked children.

Ahead of them now is the group of high chimneys and great tanks of rusty iron; the scorching sky is a veil of brickred smoke, chemical, unnatural in color. The stench of oil is almost overpowering; but Flossie drives rapidly into the

gate as if it were her own park avenue at La Lisière.

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Why have you come in here?" says Caryl Wemyss at last, looking, for the once, surprised. Mrs. Gower has dropped the reins, and seems suddenly listless.

"It was my favorite playground when I was a girl," she answers, finally. "It was a whim of mine to see the place again. Perhaps you did not know that here we made our money?"

Wemyss struggles with some speech about his indifference to the birthplace of the rose he wears; but Flossie is not hearing him; her eyes wander over the arid, unsightly factory-yard, the blue pyramids of barrels, and up to the tramways high in the air, and the masts of the iron ships.

"Come," she says; "give the reins to that man there."

Wemyss does as he is bid, and leaves the man with a silver dollar, wondering; and, wondering no less himself, he follows Flossie through the iron maze she seems to know so well.

They go up the foul ladder to the summit of the great storage tank, Wemyss caring for his fine overcoat, and almost sickened with the heavy smell of the crude petroleum, while Flossie's delicate nostrils dilate as she breathes it in once more. She guides him to the "tail-house," where the first run of naphtha has just begun, mobile, metallic, with its evil shine. Flossie looks at it closely, and notes, with an adept's eye, the hour of the run. A few hours more and it will be standard, water-white, as she has made herself, but with gold, and not with fire. Then she takes him to the spraying-house where the tested oil lies lazily, girdled by the sun with brilliant rings, fair to look upon as any sylvan spring.

Mrs. Gower was obstinately silent, going home, while Mr. Wemyss still wondered. They dined together and went to the play; and it was after midnight when he got to his rooms.

He had his valet pull his boots off and bring his smoking-jacket; and then, dismissing him, began to cut the pages of the last French novel.

"She is capable of anything," he said to himself, before he had read the first page of his book.

"She is a devil," he added, under his breath, somewhat flattered, somewhat frightened, at the thought.

CHAPTER XXVI.

JEM STARBUCK AMUSES HIMSELF.

JAMES STARBUCK's breach with his sister had been a permanent one. He probably had as little affection in his nature as any man you could well find; but what he had was centred in pretty Jenny, and he was both grieved and annoyed by this. He said to himself that his love was given to his brethren, and his work the cause of labor; and certainly he had no love for his master, the great double monopoly of a corporation that employed him, and his maker he deemed a cleverly contrived bogy of the rich. Perhaps it was more his hate of these than even love of his fellow-laborers that really ruled his actions; he recognized no difference among men but riches, and put on these the burden of all their miseries.

One hot morning in the autumn he returned from his periodic journey over the Allegheny Central Railroad. There had been trouble that week on the line of the road; trouble with a strike among the coal miners, and Starbuck had had much ado to keep their own men in order. It was a Saturday and his work was over for the week. James was never idle from preference; but he saw no work to which he could turn his hand that day. He visited the bar-room in the lower Bowery which formed his club, and found that even this was silent and deserted. One fellow only he met-a silly, drinking workman named Simpson -and he asked him to go to the races. "Everybody has gone," said he, "and I've got the tip on Ballet-girl." And James remembered that all the penny papers had been crammed for days with talk and bets and naming favorites for the great sweepstakes. He cared little for such things himself, and had a sort of contemptuous wonder at the interest they aroused among his acquaintance; but after some beer, to which Simpson insisted on treating him, they took their tickets by the railway, and paid their

dollars at the gate; dollars which, as Starbuck reflected, were more rare to Simpson than to him.

The day had grown intensely hot; not a breath was stirring on the track, and the air, impregnated with dust, seemed lifeless, overbreathed. But the grand stand was packed with humanity; poor people from his own neighborhood, dingy men, fat mothers of families, gasping for breath, young men with their giris, in soiled white dresses and gay ribbons, many wearing the colors of their favorite jockey. He could see that they were all intensely eager about the race; often they had even little betting-books, or cards upon which they marked the winners. James had never been at a race before, and was amazed at all the crowd, at the money they spent for this, at the amount of betting, at the interest they showed in all the horses. Above them, in the private boxes, was a similar crowd, but more finely dressed; Starbuck recognized some of the people he had seen driving in the Park; for he was fond of frequenting such places and having the rich men's wives pointed out to him. There even was his employer, Mr. Tamms, and his wife and daughters in crisp bright dresses, with snowy throats that made one cool to look at; and there in the shade was Mrs. Gower, whom he also knew by sight. They, too, seemed to be betting; but with less excitement than the common people (as he said to himself) below.

"Come to the paddock," said his friend; and they walked out there and saw the horses unclothed and the trial paces of the jockeys. "Isn't she a daisy?" said Simpson, pointing to a slender mare as Ballet-girl; and Starbuck looked at her. Just then her jockey dropped his whip, which Simpson obsequiously picked up and handed to him. If this numberless crowd were the working classes, they were little better than their betters," said Starbuck to himself, grimly.

The bell rang for the first race; and Simpson hurried him back to the lawn. A false start, a cloud of dust, and they were off, amid the wild cries of the multitude. He watched the little knot of gay colors bobbing around the track. How little they meant to him, and how

much to all the throng around him! Starbuck turned and watched the mass of people with all the cynicism of a Caryl Wemyss. Close by him was a rather pretty, pale-faced girl; she was evidently very poor; a black jersey was all she wore and a lilac-twigged cotton skirt; but she rose to her feet, and shouted and clapped her gloveless hands.

Between the races nothing would do but they must have some more beer; and they went behind the grand stand where the pool-booths were, and men, and women too, were drinking it. At the booths was a great press of disreputable men, crying hoarsely and waving rolls of dingy bank-bills at the gamblers. James saw that his friend had had too much to drink already; and he insisted on putting another "fiver" on his favorite. Above them in the stalls James could see the ladies drinking iced champagne and fanning themselves after the excitement of the race. He walked out upon the lawn again, where the well-dressed gentlemen were also making up their books; and went along to the sacred place reserved for private carriages. Here they had hampers; and young men in fawn-colored coats were leaning over the shoulders of pretty young women, having flirtations with them, which he, perhaps, interpreted too simply. "Really," said one pretty face's owner, "this is more like Longchamps than I had supposed possible!'

"We are improving, Mrs. Malgam," said the man. "New York will no longer be provincial, one of these days. And it is getting like Longchamps in more respects than one," he added. "Have you seen that pretty woman just ahead of us with the cream-colored ponies?

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"Dear me, how interesting!" cried the lady, levelling her opera-glasses in the direction indicated; and James Starbuck followed her look with his eyes, as he stood beside the carriage. "It seems just like being abroad to see such people! She is handsome-and she's awfully well-dressed," added the lady, candidly. "I never can get my woman to cut a dress for me like that. Who is she, Mr. Van Kull?”

"You had better ask Mr. Townley," said the other.