The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York

"But Aunt Harriet won't go."

"I've just come from her house, and she assured me that if you needed her for a chaperon – if Mrs. Callender could not go – she would keep us company."

"You have managed Aunt Harriet very well," said Phillida, with some elation. "Better than I could have done."

"I must have done well. Mrs. Gouverneur gives me great credit for my nice little scheme, as she calls it. But if she thinks I wish to be your escort solely in order to get her to attend, I assure you that Mrs. Gouverneur with all her penetration is mistaken."

Phillida colored a little at this polite speech as she said, "It will please Mrs. Hilbrough to have my aunt there."

"Yes, Mrs. Hilbrough also will give me great credit where I do not deserve it. I may call for you with Mrs. Gouverneur?"

"Thank you, it will give me a great deal of pleasure." Phillida said this with a momentary fear of hearing Agatha overturn another chair behind the sliding doors; but Mrs. Callender had taken herself and Agatha to the basement, from motives of delicacy which Agatha was hardly old enough to appreciate.

Mrs. Gouverneur never did anything by halves. She made herself agreeable to Mrs. Hilbrough on the evening of the reception and complimented her heartily on the distinguished people she had brought together. For there was the learned president of the Geographical, with overhanging brows and slow and gentle speech; there was the foreign corresponding secretary of the Historical, a man better known as a diplomatist and an author, whose long years abroad had liberalized his mind without spoiling his open-hearted American manners. There were some of the directors of the Metropolitan Museum, to which institution Pohlsen had given some Central American pottery. The senior New York poet wandered in his childlike way among the guests, making gentle and affectionate speeches to friends, who wondered at the widely contrary moods to which his susceptible nature is subject. Bolton, known in two hemispheres by his prose and poetry, had come out of complaisance, protesting rather indignantly to his friends that he didn't believe in Americans making such an ado over a mere baron. In him the stranger saw a slight figure full of character and not in any way to be trifled with; only men of letters and his friends knew what pains he could be at to oblige and to help the humblest of struggling fellow-craftsmen, provided he was not forbidden to accompany the unstinted assistance with a little grumbling at the fearful wreck of his time which all sorts of people, even the tramps of the literary profession, make without remorse.