his honoured fair beside him. Worthy middle-class creatures, they
seemed, leading dull lives but appreciative of better things when they
saw them--and George's bosom was fleetingly touched with a pitying
kindness. And since the primordial day when caste or heritage first
set one person, in his own esteem, above his fellow-beings, it is to
be doubted if anybody ever felt more illustrious, or more negligently
grand, than George Amberson Minafer felt at this party.

As he conducted Miss Morgan through the hall, toward the stairway,
they passed the open double doors of a card room, where some squadrons
of older people were preparing for action, and, leaning gracefully
upon the mantelpiece of this room, a tall man, handsome, high-
mannered, and sparklingly point-device, held laughing converse with
that queer-looking duck, the Sharon girls' uncle. The tall gentleman
waved a gracious salutation to George, and Miss Morgan's curiosity was
stirred. "Who is that?"

"I didn't catch his name when my mother presented him to me," said
George. "You mean the queer-looking duck."

"I mean the aristocratic duck."

"That's my Uncle George Honourable George Amberson. I thought
everybody knew him."

"He looks as though everybody ought to know him," she said. "It seems
to run in your family."

If she had any sly intention, it skipped over George harmlessly.
"Well, of course, I suppose most everybody does," he admitted--"out in