Undoubtedly the chief purpose of Mrs. Wilson's stay in New York was to see her daughter. After a three months' residence in South Dakota, Lucille had obtained a divorce on the ground of cruelty, and had promptly married her admirer, Bradbury Nicholson, son of the president of the Chemical Trust. Mrs. Wilson had declined to attend the wedding, which took place in Sioux City three days after the final decree had been entered--a very quiet affair. Lucille had notified her mother that it was to occur, but was not surprised that she did not take the journey. She and her husband had spent four months in Europe to let people get accustomed to the idea that she was no longer Mrs. Clarence Waldo, and recently they had taken up their residence in New York. Her new husband had three millions of his own, and, as Lucille complacently expressed the situation to her mother, society had received them exactly as if nothing had happened. "I told you how it would be, Mamma," she said. "Everybody understands that Clarence and I were mismated. I am radiantly happy, and, as for your granddaughter, she could not be fonder of Bradbury if he were her own father. He has bought a thousand dollar pony for her. All the Nicholson connection and my old friends have been giving us dinners, which shows that we can't be disapproved of very strongly." Lucille certainly looked in the best spirits when she came to see her mother. She was exquisitely dressed, and her equipage, which stood at the door during her visit, was in the height of fastidious fashion. So far as externals were concerned, it was manifest that she was making good her promise to be more conservative and decorous. Mrs. Wilson saw fit to mark her abhorrence of her daughter's course by going to a hotel instead of to Lucille's large house on Fifth Avenue. She was not willing to stay under her new son-in-law's roof, but how could she avoid making his acquaintance and dining with him? A definite breach with her only child was out of the question, as she had previously realized; besides her grand-daughter demanded now more than ever her oversight and affection. Consequently on the second day she dined at the new establishment, and consented later to attend a dinner party which was given in her honor, though Lucille kept that compliment from her mother's knowledge until the evening arrived. She had taken pains to secure the most socially distinguished and interesting people of her acquaintance, and the affair was alluded to in the newspapers as one of the most brilliant festivities of the winter. A leopard cannot altogether change its spots, and Lucille's ruling passion was still horses, but she desired to show her mother that she had genuinely improved; so it happened that after the guests had returned to the drawing-room an organ-grinder accompanied by a pleasing black-eyed young woman, both in fresh, picturesque Italian attire, were ushered in.