An invitation to dine with the Dallams’, in their own house, arrived a day or two after the tea which Honora had attended there.  Although Lily had always been cordial, Honora thought this note couched in terms of unusual warmth.  She was implored to come early, because Lily had so much to talk to her about which couldn’t be written on account of a splitting headache.  In moderate obedience to this summons Honora arrived, on the evening in question, before the ornamental ironwork of Mrs. Dallam’s front door at a few minutes after seven o’clock.  Honora paused in the spring twilight to contemplate the house, which stood out incongruously from its sombre, brownstone brothers and sisters with noisy basement kitchens.  The Third Avenue Elevated, “so handy for Sid,” roared across the gap scarcely a block away; and just as the door was opened the tightest of little blue broughams, pulled by a huge chestnut horse and driven by the tiniest of grooms in top boots, drew up at the curb.  And out of it burst a resplendent lady—­Mrs. Dallam.

“Oh, it’s you, Honora,” she cried.  “Am I late?  I’m so sorry.  But I just couldn’t help it.  It’s all Clara Trowbridge’s fault.  She insisted on my staying to meet that Renee Labride who dances so divinely in Lady Emmeline.  She’s sweet.  I’ve seen her eight times.”  Here she took Honora’s arm, and faced her towards the street.  “What do you think of my turnout?  Isn’t he a darling?”

“Is he—­full grown?” asked Honora.

Lilly Dallam burst out laughing.

“Bless you, I don’t mean Patrick,—­although I had a terrible time finding him.  I mean the horse.  Trixy Brent gave him to me before he went abroad.”

“Gave him to you!” Honora exclaimed.

“Oh, he’s always doing kind things like that, and he hadn’t any use for him.  My dear, I hope you don’t think for an instant Trixy’s in love with me!  He’s crazy about Lula Chandos.  I tried so hard to get her to come to dinner to-night, and the Trowbridges’ and the Barclays’.  You’ve no idea how difficult it is in New York to get any one under two weeks.  And so we’ve got just ourselves.”

Honora was on the point of declaring, politely, that she was very glad, when Lily Dallam asked her how she liked the brougham.

“It’s the image of Mrs. Cecil Grainger’s, my dear, and I got it for a song.  As long as Trixy gave me the horse, I told Sid the least he could do was to give me the brougham and the harness.  Is Master Sid asleep?” she inquired of the maid who had been patiently waiting at the door.  “I meant to have got home in time to kiss him.”

She led Honora up the narrow but thickly carpeted stairs to a miniature boudoir, where Madame Adelaide, in a gilt rococo frame, looked superciliously down from the walls.

“Why haven’t you been in to see me since my tea, Honora?  You were such a success, and after you left they were all crazy to know something about you, and why they hadn’t heard of you.  My dear, how much did little Harris charge you for that dress?  If I had your face and neck and figure I’d die before I’d live in Rivington.  You’re positively wasted, Honora.  And if you stay there, no one will look at you, though you were as beautiful as Mrs. Langtry.”