the mysterious question of Ovid's presence at the concert. She raised
her keenly penetrating eyes to the ceiling, and listened for sounds
from above.

"I wonder," she thought to herself, "what they are doing upstairs?"

CHAPTER VI.

Mrs. Gallilee was as complete a mistress of the practice of domestic
virtue as of the theory of acoustics and fainting fits. At dressing
with taste, and ordering dinners with invention; at heading her table
gracefully, and making her guests comfortable; at managing refractory
servants and detecting dishonest tradespeople, she was the equal of the
least intellectual woman that ever lived. Her preparations for the
reception of her niece were finished in advance, without an oversight
in the smallest detail. Carmina's inviting bedroom, in blue, opened
into Carmina's irresistible sitting-room, in brown. The ventilation was
arranged, the light and shade were disposed, the flowers were
attractively placed, under Mrs. Gallilee's infallible superintendence.
Before Carmina had recovered her senses she was provided with a second
mother, who played the part to perfection.

The four persons, now assembled in the pretty sitting-room upstairs,
were in a position of insupportable embarrassment towards each other.

Finding her son at a concert (after he had told her that he hated
music) Mrs. Gallilee, had first discovered him hurrying to the
assistance of a young lady in a swoon, with all the anxiety and alarm
which he might have shown in the case of a near and dear friend. And
yet, when this stranger was revealed as a relation, he had displayed an