"Well," said he, "Hal, I have just come from the Police Court, where there's a precious row. Our friend Dacia Dangyereyes is up for blackmailing and swindling; and there's a terrible wash of dirty linen going on. I was just in time to get the very earliest notes for our paper." "Good!" said Mr. Van Arsdel. "I hope the creature is caught at last." "Never believe that," said Jim. "She has as many lives as a cat. They never'll get a hold on her. She'll talk 'em all round." "Disgusting!" said Ida. "Ah!" said Jim, "it's part of the world as it goes. She'll come off with flying colors, doubtless, and her cock's feathers will be flaunting all the merrier for it." "How horribly disagreeable," said Eva, "to have such women around. It makes one ashamed of one's sex." "I think," said Ida, "there is not sufficient resemblance to a real woman in her to make much trouble on her account. She's an amphibious animal, belonging to a transition period of human society." "Well," said Jim, "if you'll believe it, Mrs. Cerulean and two or three of the ladies of her set are actually going to invite Dacia to their _salon_, and patronize her." "Impossible!" said Ida, flushing crimson; "it _cannot_ be!" "Oh, you don't know Mrs. Cerulean," said Jim; "Dacia called on her with her newspaper, and conducted herself in a most sweet and winning manner, and cast herself at her feet for patronage; and Mrs. Cerulean, regarding her through those glory spectacles which she usually wears, took her up immediately as a promising candidate for the latter-day. Mrs. Cerulean don't see anything in Dacia's paper that, properly interpreted, need make any trouble; because, you see, as she says, _everything ought to be love_, everywhere, above and below, under and over, up and down, top and side and bottom, ought to be _love_, LOVE. And then when there's general all-overness and all-throughness, and an entire mixed-up-ativeness, then the infinite will come down into the finite, and the finite will overflow into the infinite, and, in short, Miss Dacia's cock's feathers will sail right straight up into heaven, and we shall see her cheek by jowl with the angel Gabriel, promenading the streets of the new Jerusalem. That's the programme. Meanwhile, Dacia's delighted. She hadn't the remotest idea of being an angel, or anything of the sort; but since good judges have told her she is, she takes it all very contentedly." "Oh," said Ida, "it really can't be true, Mr. Fellows; it really is impossible that such ladies as Mrs. Cerulean's set--ladies of family and position, ladies of real dignity and delicacy--are going to indorse the principles of that paper; principles which go to the immediate dissolution of civilized society."