it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs. Mingott."

"We must give them time to get to know each other
a little better, mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with
the proper affectation of reluctance; to which the
ancestress rejoined: "Know each other? Fiddlesticks!
Everybody in New York has always known everybody.
Let the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait
till the bubble's off the wine. Marry them before Lent;
I may catch pneumonia any winter now, and I want to
give the wedding-breakfast."

These successive statements were received with the
proper expressions of amusement, incredulity and gratitude;
and the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild
pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess
Olenska, who entered in bonnet and mantle followed
by the unexpected figure of Julius Beaufort.

There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between
the ladies, and Mrs. Mingott held out Ferrigiani's model
to the banker. "Ha! Beaufort, this is a rare favour!"
(She had an odd foreign way of addressing men by
their surnames.)

"Thanks. I wish it might happen oftener," said the
visitor in his easy arrogant way. "I'm generally so tied
down; but I met the Countess Ellen in Madison Square,
and she was good enough to let me walk home with
her."