been daring the plague. ‘I do not expect to find five beautiful wives hanging up there by their necks,’ concluded she with a forced laugh, ‘but I shall yet see the interior of that room, if only to establish my prerogative as the mistress of this house.’
“I do not now feel as if I wished to see it.”
“There is one thing that strikes me as peculiar in Miss Stuyvesant, and that is, that as much pleasure as she seems to take in my society when we meet, she never comes to see me in Mr. Sylvester’s house. For a long time I wondered over this but said nothing, but one day upon receiving a second invitation to visit her, I mentioned the fact as delicately as I could, and was quite distressed to observe how seriously she took the rebuke, if rebuke it could be called. ‘I cannot explain myself,’ she murmured in some embarrassment; ‘but Mr. Sylvester’s house is closed against me. You must not ask me to seek you there or expect me to do myself the pleasure of attending Mrs. Sylvester’s receptions. I cannot. Is that enough for me to say to my dearest friend?’ I hardly knew what to reply, but finally ventured to inquire if she was restrained by any fact that would make it undignified in me to seek her society and enjoy the pleasures she is continually offering me. And she answered with such a cheerful negative I was quite reassured. And so the matter is settled. Our friendship is to be emancipated from the bonds of etiquette and I am to enjoy her company whenever I can. Tomorrow we are going to take our first ride in the park. The horses have been bought, and much to Cousin Ona’s satisfaction, the groom has been hired.”
“I was told something the other day, of a nature so unpleasant that I should not think of repeating it, if you had not expressly commanded me to confide to you everything that for any reason produced an effect upon me in my new home. My informant was Sarah, the somewhat gossiping woman whom Ona has about her as seamstress and maid. She said—and she had spoken before I could prevent her—that the way Mrs. Sylvester