Such a low rent! Kitty and I exchanged a glance in spite of our manners. Archie Lewis had told us that Templeton, whom he saw every day in his father's office, had told _him_ he had made the lease at a hundred and seventy-five a month; we did not think that a very low rent, we who lived contentedly enough in houses at one-fifth that amount, like by far the greater number of our friends. But the Pallinders plainly did not measure by our standards. Mazie had a fresh dress for every party; she wore almost as much jewelry as her mother, and when Mrs. Pallinder came out in all her diamonds, she was the most resplendent spectacle our society ever witnessed. Will anyone ever forget her appearance as _Astarte_ at the Charity Ball? She twinkled all over with jewelled stars, serpents, rings, ear-drops, gew-gaws any _Astarte_ might have been proud to own--"goddess excellently _bright_!" as Doctor Vardaman said. The ball took place during the Christmas holidays--the Pallinders' second Christmas with us--just before Mazie went to Washington, and, to quote the _State Journal_, "it was an event long to be remembered in the social annals of our city." Odd-Fellows' Hall was "a fairy-like dream of beauty," the same masterpiece of descriptive rhetoric reported. Mazie deferred her visit so as not to miss it, and went as _Folly_ in a white dress with spangles--glittering fringes of white beads half a yard deep. Kitty Oldham appeared as _Diana Vernon_--"I can wear the big hat with feathers afterwards, you know," she thriftily remarked; she looked exceedingly trig in a scarlet waistcoat with her little chin cocked up on a white lawn stock. There was the usual supply of Watteau shepherdesses--I was one of them--toreadors, Continental soldiers in buff-and-blue, Queens-of-Hearts, Pierrots, and so on. Mrs. Pallinder's diaphanous and low-cut magnificence, heavily hung with jewelry, outshone everybody, and was a target for considerable unkind comment. A woman of her age! It was startling, to say the least. She could have gone as Queen Elizabeth or Lady Macbeth, but this was almost too theatrical; of course, she was a beautiful woman, and looked scarcely older than her own daughter, still----! "The reporters will describe every square inch of Mrs. Pallinder's costume," some young fellow said to Kitty Oldham. "They won't have to say much," retorted Kitty, with an oblique glance--a remark which, backed by her mother's well-known acidity of tongue, made Kitty's, reputation as a wit in our circle. The one person whom it did not seem to amuse was Gwynne Peters; and he listened with a singularly grum and discomposed face, and afterwards stalked off without a word, although he was in general, genial enough. Something must have gone at cross-purposes with Gwynne that night; he wore a Charles Stuart dress, and stood about in gloomy attitudes, with his sword, black velvet, and lace collar, looking the part to perfection;