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"You know my niece Countess Olenska?" Mrs Welland enquired as she shook hands with her future son-in-law Archer boithout extending his hand, as was the custo introduced to a lady; and Ellen Olenska bent her head slightly, keeping her own pale-gloved hands clasped on her huge fan of eagle feathers Having greeted Mrs Lovell Mingott, a large blonde lady in creaking satin, he sat down beside his betrothed, and said in a low tone: "I hope you've told Madaed? I want everybody to knoant you to letat the ball"

Miss Welland's face grew rosy as the dawn, and she looked at him with radiant eyes "If you can persuade Mae what is already settled?" He made no answer but that which his eyes returned, and she added, still ive you leave She says she used to play with you when you were children"

Sheback her chair, and promptly, and a little ostentatiously, with the desire that the whole house should see what he was doing, Archer seated himself at the Countess Olenska's side

"We DID use to play together, didn't we?" she asked, turning her grave eyes to his "You were a horrid boy, and kissed me once behind a door; but it was your cousin Vandie Newland, who never looked at lance swept the horse-shoe curve of boxes "Ah, how this brings it all back to me--I see everybody here in knickerbockers and pantalettes," she said, with her trailing slightly foreign accent, her eyes returning to his face

Agreeable as their expression was, the young man was shocked that they should reflect so unseeust tribunal before which, at that verycould be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered so ti," she said, "that I'm sure I'm dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;" which, for reasons he could not define, struck Newland Archer as an evenNew York society