red velvet rocking chair, across the back of which Mrs. Vance
had draped a Neapolitan scarf; an upright piano, upon which
Emmanuel Day, or, as he was known to the cross-roads of Broadway
and Forty-second street, "Mannie" Day, provoked the most
marvelous rag-time, an enlarged photograph in crayon, of
Professor Vance, in a frock coat and lawn tie, a china bull dog,
coquettishly decorated with a blue bow, and, on the mantel
piece, two tall beer steins and a hand telephone. From the long
windows one obtained a view of the iron shutters of the new
department store in Thirty-fourth Street, and of a garden, just
large enough to contain a sumach tree, a refrigerator, and the
packing-case in which the piano had arrived.

After leaving Winthrop, without waiting for Vance, Vera had
returned directly to the house in Thirty-fifth Street, and
locked herself in her room. And although "Mannie" Day had
already ushered two visitors into the front room, Vera had not
yet come downstairs. In consequence, Mabel Vance was in
possession of the reception parlor.

Mrs. Vance was plump, pink-and-blonde, credulous and vulgar, but
at all times of the utmost good humor. Her admiration for Vera
was equaled only by her awe of her. On this particular
afternoon, although it already was after five o'clock, Mrs.
Vance still wore a short dressing sack, open at the throat, and
heavy with somewhat soiled lace. But her blonde hair was freshly
"marcelled," and her nails pink and shining. In the absence of
Vera, she was making a surreptitious and guilty use of the
telephone. From the fact that in her left hand she held the
morning telegraph open at the "previous performances" of the