Here also is Cornelia Van Geist, sister of our admirable hostess--relict of a gentleman who had been first or second cousin to half the people in society it were really desirable to know, and whose taste in wines, dinners, and sports had been widely praised at his death by those who had had the fortune to be numbered among his friends. Mrs. Van Geist has a kind, shrewd face, and her hair, which turned prematurely grey while she was yet a wife, gives her a look of age that her actual years belie. Here, too, is Rulon Shepler, the money-god, his large, round head turning upon his immense shoulders without the aid of a neck--sharp-eyed, grizzled, fifty, short of stature, and with as few illusions concerning life as the New York financier is apt to retain at his age. If we be forced to wait for another guest of note, it is hardly more than her due; for Mrs. Gwilt-Athelstan is truly a personage, and the best people on more than one continent do not become unduly provoked at being made to wait for her. Those less than the very best frankly esteem it a privilege. Yet the great lady is not careless of engagements, and the wait is never prolonged. Mrs. Milbrey has time to say to her sister, "Yes, we think it's going; and really, it will do very well, you know. The girl has had some nonsense in her mind for a year past--none of us can tell what--but now she seems actually sensible, and she's promised to accept when the chap proposes." But there is time for no more gossip. The belated guest arrives, enveloped in a vast cloak, and accompanied by her two nephews, whom Percival Bines recognises for the solemn and taciturn young men he had met in Shepler's party at the mine. Mrs. Gwilt-Athelstan, albeit a decorative personality, is constructed on the same broad and generously graceful lines as her own victoria. The great lady has not only two chins, but what any fair-minded observer would accept as sufficient promise of a good third. Yet hardly could a slighter person display to advantage the famous Gwilt-Athelstan jewels. The rope of pierced diamonds with pigeon-blood rubies strung between them, which she wears wound over her corsage, would assuredly overweight the frail Fidelia Oldaker; the tiara of emeralds and diamonds was never meant for a brow less majestic; nor would the stomacher of lustrous grey pearls and glinting diamonds ever have clasped becomingly a figure that was _svelte_--or "skinny," as the great lady herself is frank enough to term all persons even remotely inclined to be _svelte_. But let us sit and enliven a proper dinner with talk upon topics of legitimate interest and genuine propriety.