whose face lighted up in return, and who then sank back with a
sort of sigh of relief, as if she had at last seen somebody she
cared for. The lady waved an un-gloved hand, and drove by.

"Who is that?" asked Philip, eagerly. He was used to knowing
every one.

"Hope's pet," said Kate, "and she who pets Hope, Lady Antwerp."

"Is it possible?" said Malbone. "That young creature? I
fancied her ladyship in spectacles, with little side curls. Men
speak of her with such dismay."

"Of course," said Kate, "she asks them sensible questions."

"That is bad," admitted Philip. "Nothing exasperates
fashionable Americans like a really intelligent foreigner. They
feel as Sydney Smith says the English clergy felt about
Elizabeth Fry; she disturbs their repose, and gives rise to
distressing comparisons,--they long to burn her alive. It is
not their notion of a countess."

"I am sure it was not mine," said Hope; "I can hardly remember
that she is one; I only know that I like her, she is so simple
and intelligent. She might be a girl from a Normal School."

"It is because you are just that," said Kate, "that she likes
you. She came here supposing that we had all been at such
schools. Then she complained of us,--us girls in what we call
good society, I mean,--because, as she more than hinted, we did