Lady Baltimore

, as I dressed for breakfast; the next morning is--at least I have always found it so--an excellent time for

readily as they can idealize up. Of Miss Hortense Rieppe I had now two partial portraits--one by the displeased aunts, the other by their chivalric nephew; in both she held between her experienced lips, a cigarette; there the similarity ceased. And then, there was the toboggan fire-escape. Well, I must meet the living original before I could decide whether (for me, at any rate) she was the "brute" as seen by the eyes of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or the "really nice girl" who was going to marry John Mayrant on Wednesday week. Just at this point my thoughts bro

r my mail at the post-office, because I got it sooner; it didn't come to the boarding-house before I had departed on my quest for royal blood, whereas, this way, I simply got my letters a

erine of Aragon, had recited a beautiful original poem, entitled "My Queen Grandmother." Aunt Carola regretted that I could not have had the pleasure and the benefit of this meeting, the young gentleman had turned out to be, also, a refined and tasteful musician, playing, upon the piano a favorite gavotte of Louis the Thirteenth "And while you are in Kings Port," my aunt said; "I expect you to profit by associating with the survivors of our good American society--people such as one could once meet everywhere when I was young

ong the wharves the nearest vista that could give me a view of the harbor. Between the silent walls of commerce desolated, and by the empty windows from which Prosperity once looked out, I threaded my way to a point upon the town's eastern edge. Yes, that was the steam yacht's name: the Hermana. I didn't make it out myself, she lay a trifle too far from shore; but I could read from a little fluttering pennant that her owner was not on board; and from the second loafer whom I questioned I learned, beside

onversation which, in consequence, broke o

st bruise above his eye.

ad not exercised it in my presence. She looked, in her veil and her black street dress, as aloof, and as coldly scornful of the present day, as she had seemed when sit

t not encouragingly, and then, on the threshold, exchanged

listened to me. Of course, the chastisement was right--but it

girl agreed. "I wish he wouldn't.

of the Exchange. I retired to my usual table, and the girl read in my manner, quite co

akes strangers think she

myself I have ceased to be: "Oh, displeasure is as mu

with her delightf

en you know her, you'll know that that awful manner means Aunt Josephine is jus

ad they stopped talking when I came in? Of course, I found myself hoping that John Mayrant had put the owner of the Hermana in bed at the slight cost of a bruise above his left eye. I wondered

stale to-day. You can have

. "It's not so very stale," I said.

e been having. You're it

There's M

week yet, y

Still, John might have smas

en him latel

ial in the way she looke

oon. He has his dut

and then, "What do you

ent?" I was

ld take his view--the N

"Oh, the President of the United St

ed to be thinking too much to speak. Now, here was a topic that I had a

te any respectable member of any race he

admirably, she put it all under, and spoke on with perfect self-control. "Why can't somebody explain it to him? If I knew him, I would go to him myself, and I would say, Mr. President, we need not discuss our different tastes as to dinner company. Nor need we discuss how much you benefit the colored race by an act which makes every member of it immediately think that he is fit to dine with an

claimed, "you put it so that

it strik

em all think they w

ere we live had a new strut, like the monkey when you put a red flannel cap on him--only the monkey doesn't push ladies off the sidewalk. And that state of mind, you know," said Miss La H

stom House! John Mayrant was subordinate to the President's app

"And so you wish him

head of her

stoms?" she wond

"Did Miss Josephine St. Michae

n, accompanied also by a blush as splendidly young as John Mayrant had been while he so stammeringly brought out his wishes

se impression flowed out of them as smoothl

esn't really matter. Everybody is bound to know it. You

endidly mendacious veracity. "How we

as too much for her. It was, of course, just the accident of our ages; in a very few years she would catch up, would pass, would always be too much for me. W

ingenuity, remarked, "I suppo

like that better--don

mean that f

e finishe

ere ought to be some correspondence, some proportion,

r fists!" she scornfully cried. "P

then you give the coal-heaver

's t

for some offenses, while for lighter o

on't meet it! What is an

rees--insolence, impudence, impertinenc

ith a sudden odd quietn

and for liberties in their chosen few; it's only the hotel clerk and the head waiter from wh

t these words my intelligence sailed into a great blank, while she continued: "Frankly--

?" I barked i

have insulted me more than that. And that's what you do

. In them was that look of a certain inquiry and a certain remoteness with w

point of view is so often the same as ours." She was still surveying me with the specimen expression, when it sudde

t may have been the exterior that I presented to her, sitti

his place," the

is always so easy to s

se over it, and then, as she wheeled round from me, back to

th the profile of her short, belligerent nose, but with the chilly way in which she made her pencil move over the ledger, she told me plainly that my self-respect had fa

ask for a fresh one to-morrow," I ve

ertainly the public is entitled to wha

he public," no matter how much Lady Baltimore I should lunch upon! A ha

I've a confe

opened and young John Mayrant came in. It was all ri

disconcerted. "To think of finding you he

said. "You know

all sorts of things more to

, something being said about the G