that Senator Cheney took no more delight in the role of father than
he had found in the role of husband.

Alice was given every advantage which money could purchase. But her
delicate health had rendered systematic study of any kind impossible,
and her twentieth birthday found her with no education, with no use
of her reasoning or will powers, but with a complete and beautiful
wardrobe in which to masquerade and air her poor little attempts at
music, art, or conversation.

Judge Lawrence died when Alice was fifteen years of age, leaving both
his widow and his daughter handsomely provided for.

The Baroness not only possessed the Beryngford homestead, but a house
in Washington as well; and both of these were occupied by tenants,
for Mabel insisted upon having her stepmother dwell under her own
roof. Senator Cheney had purchased a house in New York to gratify
his wife and daughter, and it was here the family resided, when not
in Washington or at the seaside resorts. Both women wished to
forget, and to make others forget, that they had ever lived in
Beryngford. They never visited the place and never referred to it.
They desired to be considered "New Yorkers" and always spoke of
themselves as such.

The Baroness was now hopelessly passee. Yet it was the revealing of
the inner woman, rather than the withering of the exterior, which
betrayed her years. The woman who understands the art of bodily
preservation can, with constant toil and care, retain an appearance
of youth and charm into middle life; but she who would pass that
dreaded meridian, and still remain a goodly sight for the eyes of