It seemed written, foreordained, Gwynne Peters used to say, half in amusement, half in distaste, that his grandfather's house should forever be either completely retired from notice, or else figure gaudily in the limelight of a publicity that would have caused its dignified founder untold wrath and mortification. "All that newspaper gabble about the Pallinders and the diamond necklace is to blame for this!" said Gwynne, when he read in the _State Journal_ a week after the Charity Ball, a circumstantial account under flaming headlines of how "the mansion of the late Governor Gwynne, the historic landmark in the suburbs of our city, on Richmond Avenue, not far from the junction of the Lexington and Amherst car-lines, now occupied by the well-known society leaders, Colonel and Mrs. William Pallinder, was the objective-point of a burglarious attack last night about 12 P. M." It appeared that the burglarious attack had failed! the diamonds were still safe--as, indeed, the thief whom "our vigilant and efficient Chief of Police, Captain O'Brien, in spite of every effort, had not yet been able to locate." Friends of the family would be relieved to hear that Mrs. Pallinder's venerable mother, Mrs. Jacob Botlisch, had experienced no ill effects from this exciting midnight episode; Mrs. Pallinder herself, on the contrary, was quite prostrated, and could not see one of the innumerable reporters who besieged the house. "It's a perfect persecution," Gwynne announced with unwonted heat, having called the next day to inquire, and been ushered into a parlourful of these gentry. "Here were all those fellows roosting about like vultures--and the greatest racket and confusion! Just as if poor Mrs. Pallinder hadn't been lying upstairs sick with the fright and worry. She--she's a very delicate, sensitive woman, you know," said the young man, with the easy flush that showed so over his thin, fair-skinned face. He left his card, and not long after the florist's boy came to the back door, having received express instructions not to ring the bell and annoy Mrs. Pallinder, with one of those large pasteboard boxes, wherein for all their prosaic look, so much romance is carted about the world. Truly a red-faced lad with a cold in the nose, and patches of alien materials applied to prominent parts of his trousers, is an odd figure to be employed upon these sentimental errands--yet such are all florists' boys. A reporter pounced on this one as he strolled jauntily around the house, whistling in a high and cheery fashion under his burden. "What you got there, Johnny?" said this inquiring gentleman. "Vi'lets." "Who for?" "S'Pallinder." "Well, who from then?" "Dunno. They're five dollars a hundred." The maid took them in, and doubtless Mrs. Pallinder's delicate and sensitive nature was greatly soothed by the tribute.