at the inn or in its vicinity until after the entertainment. To this my
client readily pledged himself with that absolute freedom from suspicion
which formed one of the most admirable traits of his character. The
Celebrity, being intuitively quick where women were concerned, had
surmised that Mrs. Cooke did not like him; but as her interests in the
affair of the cotillon coincided with those of Mr. Cooke, she was
available as a means to an end. The Celebrity deemed her, from a social
standpoint, decidedly the better part of the Mohair establishment, and he
contrived, by a system of manoeuvres I failed to grasp, to throw her
forward while he kept Mr. Cooke in the background.

He had much to contend with; above all, an antecedent prejudice against
the Cookes, in reality a prejudice against the world, the flesh, and the
devil, natural to any quiet community, and of which Mohair and its
appurtenances were taken as the outward and visible signs. Older people
came to Asquith for simplicity and rest, and the younger ones were
brought there for these things. Nearly all had sufficient wealth to
seek, if they chose, gayety and ostentation at the eastern resorts. But
Asquithians held gayety and ostentation at a discount, and maintained
there was gayety enough at home.

If any one were fitted to overcome this prejudice, it was Mrs. Cooke.
Her tastes and manners were as simple as her gowns. The Celebrity, by
arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at
Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the
track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they
were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.
Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair
was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and
equally invisible. These ladies likewise came back to sing Mrs. Cooke's