her proper sphere.  Here she was, being made much of as a new-comer, and here if possible she must remain.  Everything smiled on her with gilded dimples, and these were the smiles she valued.  As the softness of the cushions sank into her heart, and mellow nothingnesses from well-trained voices greeted her ears, and the air of wealth and idleness floated about her cheeks, her imagination rose within her and assured her that she could secure something better than Bragton.  The cautions with which she had armed herself faded away.  This, this was the kind of thing for which she had been striving.  As a girl of spirit was it not worth her while to make another effort even though there might be danger?  Aut Caesar aut nihil.  She knew nothing about Caesar; but before the tardy wheels which brought the Senator and Mr. Morton had stopped at the door she had declared to herself that she would be Lady Rufford.  The fresh party was of course brought into the drawing-room and tea was offered; but Arabella hardly spoke to them, and Lady Augustus did not speak to them at all, and they were shown up to their bedrooms with very little preliminary conversation.

It was very hard to put Mr. Gotobed down;—­or it might be more correctly said, as there was no effort to put him down,—­that it was not often that he failed in coming to the surface.  He took Lady Penwether out to dinner and was soon explaining to her that this little experiment of his in regard to Goarly was being tried simply with the view of examining the institutions of the country.  “We don’t mind it from you,” said Lady Penwether, “because you are in a certain degree a foreigner.”  The Senator declared himself flattered by being regarded as a foreigner only “in a certain degree.”  “You see you speak our language, Mr. Gotobed, and we can’t help thinking you are half-English.”

“We are two-thirds English, my lady,” said Mr. Gotobed; “but then we think the other third is an improvement.”

“Very likely.”

“We have nothing so nice as this;” as he spoke he waved his right hand to the different corners of the room.  “Such a dinner-table as I am sitting down to now couldn’t be fixed in all the United States though a man might spend three times as many dollars on it as his lordship does.”

“That is very often done, I should think.”

“But then as we have nothing so well done as a house like this, so also have we nothing so ill done as the houses of your poor people.”

“Wages are higher with you, Mr. Gotobed”

“And public spirit, and the philanthropy of the age, and the enlightenment of the people, and the institutions of the country all round.  They are all higher.”

“Canvas-back ducks,” said the Major, who was sitting two or three off on the other side.

“Yes, sir, we have canvas-back ducks.”

“Make up for a great many faults,” said the Major.

“Of course, sir, when a man’s stomach rises above his intelligence he’ll have to argue accordingly,” said the Senator.