it all out of his own pocket; he pronounced the wall-paper and new graining to be in the best of taste, although hardly the equal in appearance or cost of what Governor Gwynne would have provided. Such was the Gwynne enthusiasm that I am convinced it must have contributed largely to the success of the Pallinders with our society; for, after all, as unstable as they themselves were, the Gwynne position with us was of the most stable; our city had known them for fifty years. A family whose men were rigorously confined to the professions--all except Horace Gwynne, who was in the wholesale grocery business,--a family which numbered among its members a governor of a State--even if it also numbered one or more "queer" people--such a family held, unquestioned, the highest social rank. And Mrs. Horace Gwynne--she was a daughter of old Bishop Hunter, which may be supposed in a measure to set off the grocery business--frankly considered herself arbiter not only of her husband's family, but of society in general as well; and never doubted that in the matter of assigning people to their caste and station one blast upon _her_ bugle-horn was worth a thousand men. She performed her first visit in state and ceremony in her well-ordered barouche--the Horace Gwynnes were fairly well-to-do, owing, people said, to Mrs. Horace's implacable thrift--and eying the approaches to the old house, as she drove up in a highly critical and examining mood. Her sharp glance noted every change; the carefully-weeded sweep and circle of the drive, the close-cut lawn and pruned shrubbery pleased her like an incense to the Governor's memory. The place had not looked so since his day. There was a length of red carpet down over the flagged veranda and stone steps such as used to adorn the sacred threshold thirty years before when she was a young bride just entered into the family; this trivial thing moved her inexplicably as such things do, and she descended at the door in a temper of less severity. It augured well for the pair of ladies within, profanely peering through their exceedingly high-priced lace curtains and wondering who on earth the funny little old lady in the chignon and her best black silk was.