“Soft as a green quince!” said Mrs. Abner, scornfully.  “How many friends has he?”

“Those he has are warm enough,” Miss Crane retorted.  “Look at Colonel Carvel, who has him to dinner every Sunday.”

“That’s plain as your nose, Mirandy Crane.  They both like quarrellin’ better than anything in this world.”

“Well,” said Miss Crane, “I must go make ready for the Brices.”

Such was the importance of the occasion, however, that she could not resist calling at Mrs. Merrill’s room, and she knocked at Mrs. Chandler’s door to tell that lady and her daughter.

No Burke has as yet arisen in this country of ours to write a Peerage.  Fame awaits him.  Indeed, it was even then awaiting him, at the time of the panic of 1857.  With what infinite pains were the pedigree and possessions of the Brice family pieced together that day by the scattered residents from Puritan-land in the City of St. Louis.  And few buildings would have borne the wear and tear of many house-cleanings of the kind Miss Crane indulged in throughout the morning and afternoon.

Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, on his return from business, was met on the steps and requested to wear his Sunday clothes.  Like the good republican that he was, Mr. Hopper refused.  He had ascertained that the golden charm which made the Brices worthy of tribute had been lost.  Commercial supremacy,—­that was Mr. Hopper’s creed.  Family is a good thing, but of what use is a crest without the panels on which to paint it?  Can a diamond brooch shine on a calico gown?  Mr. Hopper deemed church the place for worship.  He likewise had his own idol in his closet.

Eliphalet at Willesden had heard a great deal of Boston airs and graces and intellectuality, of the favored few of that city who lived in mysterious houses, and who crossed the sea in ships.  He pictured Mrs. Brice asking for a spoon, and young Stephen sniffing at Mrs. Crane’s boarding-house.  And he resolved with democratic spirit that he would teach Stephen a lesson, if opportunity offered.  His own discrepancy between the real and the imagined was no greater than that of the rest of his fellow-boarders.

Barring Eliphalet, there was a dress parade that evening,—­silks and bombazines and broadcloths, and Miss Crane’s special preserves on the tea-table.  Alas, that most of the deserved honors of this world should fall upon barren ground!

The quality which baffled Mr. Hopper, and some other boarders, was simplicity.  None save the truly great possess it (but this is not generally known).  Mrs. Brice was so natural, that first evening at tea, that all were disappointed.  The hero upon the reviewing stand with the halo of the Unknown behind his head is one thing; the lady of Family who sits beside you at a boarding-house and discusses the weather and the journey is quite another.  They were prepared to hear Mrs. Brice rail at the dirt of St. Louis and the crudity of the West.  They pictured her referring with sighs to her Connections, and bewailing that Stephen could not have finished his course at Harvard.