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The knowing people said it was Beaufort hiht the chef new dishes, told the gardeners what hot-house flowers to grow for the dinner-table and the drawing-roouests, brewed the after-dinner punch and dictated the little notes his rote to her friends If he did, these domestic activities were privately performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless and hospitable -roo: "My wife's gloxinias are a ets thereed, was the way he carried things off It was all very well to whisper that he had been "helped" to leave England by the international banking-house in which he had been employed; he carried off that ruh New York's business conscience was no less sensitive than itsbefore hi-roooing to the Beauforts'" with the sa to Mrs Manson Mingott's, and with the added satisfaction of knowing they would get hot canvas-back ducks and vintage wines, instead of tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and warmed-up croquettes from Philadelphia

Mrs Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared, New York knew that in

The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball The Beauforts had been a the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own foot it with the supper and the ball-roo the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to the hostess's bedrooas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly coiffees when they left home

Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-rooet to it (as at the Chiverses') one -roo from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where cae over seats of black and gold bamboo