Western origin, and a poor but clever protege of the rich banker;
but she was one of a certain class of American women who, in the
midst of a fierce democracy, are more or less cat-like conservators
of family pride and lineage, and more or less felinely inconsistent
and treacherous to republican principles. Bly, who had just
settled in his mind to send her the rent anonymously--as a weekly
valentine--recovered himself and his spirits in his usual boyish
fashion.

"I am afraid, Mrs. Brooks," he said gayly, "I cannot lay claim to
any distinguished relationship, even to that 'Nelly Bly' who, you
remember, 'winked her eye when she went to sleep.'" He stopped in
consternation. The terrible conviction flashed upon him that this
quotation from a popular negro-minstrel song could not possibly be
remembered by a lady as refined as his hostess, or even known to
her superior son. The conviction was intensified by Mrs. Brooks
rising with a smileless face, slightly shedding the possible
vulgarity with a shake of her shawl, and remarking that she would
show him her son's room, led the way upstairs to the apartment
recently vacated by the perfect Tappington.

Preceded by the same distant flutter of unseen skirts in the
passage which he had first noticed on entering the drawing-room,
and which evidently did not proceed from his companion, whose self-
composed cerements would have repressed any such indecorous
agitation, Mr. Bly stepped timidly into the room. It was a very
pretty apartment, suggesting the same touches of tasteful
refinement in its furniture and appointments, and withal so
feminine in its neatness and regularity, that, conscious of his
frontier habits and experience, he felt at once repulsively