The Miss Ayrs of New York were partly right in what they said of their cousin, namely, that she had been badly brought up. This fact might possibly have been overlooked on the score of her having lost her mother in childhood, but for the other fact, that the Miss Ayrs of New York were in the same case, and yet felt proudly conscious that they could challenge the world as to their unimpeachable good form. There was one important difference between the two families, however. The Ayrs of New York were rich, while the Ayrs of Virginia were poor. The war, which had caused the impoverishment of the latter branch of the family was not yet so far back in the past but that days of opulence and ease could yet be remembered, even by this sole representative in the present generation, Miss Carter Ayr, who, now for the first time emerged from the safety and seclusion of her beloved South, was come to taste the delights of a season in New York. The two brothers, who were the respective heads of the families, had both been left widowers, and neither of them had re-married; but John Ayr of New York had been able to give his daughters the very best that money could do for them, in the way of governesses and chaperonage and foreign travel, while Henry Ayr of Virginia had had to content himself with the ministrations of a gentle, old-maid cousin, who had been governess and chaperon in one, and had let Carter grow up much as she chose--a fact which had not in the least interfered with her father’s complete satisfaction with her. There were three Miss Ayrs of New York, and they were all tall, and imposing, and perfectly dressed. They were particularly showy for an occasion such as the present, which was, perhaps, one reason why Jim Stafford, the young bachelor millionaire to whom all society did reverence, had invited all three of them to go out on his coach to-day. Jim was a very good-natured fellow, however, and often did things with no other prompting than that quality, and so, when Mr. Ayr, hearing the matter discussed over night, and no provision made for Carter, had insisted that one of the girls should yield her place to her cousin, Jim had good-naturedly said there was room for all, and Mr. Ayr had decreed that Carter should go. He generally interfered very little, but his daughters knew that when he spoke he meant to be obeyed. So, in this way, it happened that little Carter Ayr found herself in the midst of that fluttering, chattering, bantering party, whose jargon was wholly unfamiliar, and whose manner toward herself seemed to surround her with an atmosphere of chill and constraint.