“Oh, Aunt Minnie, I had to—­to see what he’d say.”

“And what did he say?” asked Harriet’s mother,

“He looked at me gravely, you know, until I was ashamed of myself,” the girl confessed, “and then he said:  ’Why, Hat, you must know that Mrs. Coppered was a professional actress?’”

“And a very obscure little actress, at that,” finished Mrs. Culver, nodding.

“Pacific Coast stock companies or something like that,” said Harriet.  “Well, and then, after a minute, he said, so sadly, ’That’s what hurts, although I hate myself for letting it make a difference.’”

“Duncan said that?” Mrs. Van Winkle was incredulous.

“Poor boy!  With one aunt Mrs. Vincent-Hunter and the other an English duchess!  The Coppereds have always been among Boston’s best families.  It’s terrible,” said Mrs. Culver.

“Well, I think it is,” the girl agreed warmly.  “Judge Clyde Potter’s grandson, and brought up with the very nicest people, and sensitive as he is—­I think it’s just too bad it should be Duncan!”

“There’s no doubt she was an actress, I suppose, Emily?”

“Well,” said Harriet’s mother, “it’s not denied.”  She shrugged eloquently.

“Shall you call, mother?”

“Oh, I shall have to once, I suppose.  The Coppereds, you know.  Every one will call on her for Carey’s sake,” said Mrs. Culver, sighing.

Every one duly called on Mrs. Carey Coppered, when she returned to Boston; and although she made her mourning an excuse for declining all formal engagements, she sent out cards for an “at home” on a Friday in January.  She was a thin, graceful woman, with the blue-black Irish eyes that are set in with a sooty finger, and an unexpectedly rich, deep voice.  Her quiet, almost diffident manner was obviously accentuated just now by her recent sorrow; but this did not conceal from her husband’s friends the fact that the second Mrs. Coppered was not of their world.  Everything charming she might be, but to the manner born she was not.  They would not meet her on her own ground, she could not meet them on theirs.  In her own home she listened like a puzzled, silenced child to the gay chatter that went on about her.

Duncan stood with his father, at his stepmother’s side, on her afternoon at home, prompting her when names or faces confused her, treating her with a little air of gracious intimacy eminently becoming and charming under the circumstances.  His tact stood between her and more than one blunder, and it was to be noticed that she relied upon him even more than upon his father.  Carey Coppered, indeed, hitherto staid and serious, was quite transformed by his joy and pride in her, and would not have seen a thousand blunders on her part.  The consensus of opinion, among his friends, was that Carey was “really a little absurd, don’t you know?” and that Mrs. Carey was “quite deliciously odd,” and that Duncan was “too wonderful—­ poor, dear boy!”