“Not a bit of it,” answered Boyce, with supreme contempt of the idea. “She’s only a customer of ours. I’ve had to carry home her groceries more than once, when that boy Jim was out. That’s Mrs. Lambert.” “Mrs. Lambert,” repeated Kate, who had never heard the name before, but was still wonderfully impressed by the splendor of that lady’s dress. “Well, of course, you know; only, if it was not for that, I should take her for something a great deal more particular. Dear me! what a blaze the house is in. How the curtains shake and tremble. To think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith being in there, with the cream of the country, and I dressing her for the same! It’s beyond belief, if we didn’t know it?” “Miss Kate!” “Well, Boyce, that’s me!” “After the carriages get a little thinner, suppose you and I go down to the theatre?” “The theatre, Mr. Boyce, wouldn’t that make us late home?” “Well, no. We could just drop into the Bowery, see some of them fellows die fighting like fury, and then get back time enough to see all this company come out and go home. They’ve been having a good time; why shouldn’t we?” “True for ye: but the child!” “Haven’t we left that boy Jim in full charge, and isn’t he a capital nuss. Come now, what’s the odds! While this swell-crowd is enjoying of itself with dancing and champagne, oysters and ice cream, boned-turkey, and what not, you and I are human creatures, with a right to live, and have fun as well as them.” “That is the truth, anyhow.” “So, having the funds in my pocket, I am ready to stand that amount, if you’re conformable.” “Well, Boyce, I can’t say but I am willing.” With this, Kate Gorman took the clerk’s arm, and crossing over to a street car, proceeded with him to the theatre. An hour or two later, the couple stood in front of Mr. Carter’s dwelling again. The crowd had dispersed then, and there seemed little to interest any person in the carriages that crept up to the door, and, taking in a sleepy freight of revelers, moved away. Still Boyce insisted that the sight was one that he would not lose for the world, and kept the weary girl standing there, until Mrs. Smith appeared at the door, and, with fussy attention to her dress, entered the hack that waited for her. When this carriage drove away, Boyce expressed great willingness to go home; and Kate, who had dropped half asleep, moved away with him, heartily wishing herself in bed. Mr. and Mrs. Smith drove, in a dreary, fatigued state, toward their home. The occasion had been a proud one; but even that could not make them quite insensible to the late hour, and the discomfort of full dress, when the desire for sleep lay heavy upon both. When the carriage stopped, Smith let himself out, and waited to see his wife safe on the pavement. Then he gave a heavy blow on the door with his clenched hand, waiting afterward with some impatience for it to be opened.