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Mrs. St. George! I wish I hadn’t left all mine in the safe at New York!”
    Mrs. St. George thought: “She means the place isn’t worth bringing jewels to. As if she ever went out anywhere in New York!” But her eyes wandered beyond Mrs. Closson to Lord Richard Marable; it was the first time she had ever sat at table with anyone even remotely related to a British nobleman, and she fancied the young man was ironically observing the way in which she held her fork. But she saw that his eyes, which were sand-coloured like his face, and sandy-lashed, had found another occupation. They were fixed on Conchita Closson, who sat opposite to him; they rested on her unblinkingly, immovably, as if she had been a natural object, a landscape or a cathedral, that one had travelled far to see, and had the right to look at as long as one chose. “He’s drinking her up like blotting-paper. I thought they were better brought up over in England!” Mrs. St. George said to herself, austerely thankful that he was not taking such liberties with her daughters (“but men always know the difference,” she reflected), and suddenly not worrying any longer about how she held her fork.

IV.
    Miss Laura Testvalley stood on the wooden platform of the railway station at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and looked about her. It was not an inspiriting scene; but she had not expected that it would be, and would not have greatly cared if it had. She had been in America for eighteen months, and it was not for its architectural or civic beauties that she had risked herself so far. Miss Testvalley had small means, and a derelict family to assist; and her successful career as a governess in the households of the English aristocracy had been curtailed by the need to earn more money. English governesses were at a premium in the United States, and one of Miss Testvalley’s former pupils, whose husband was attached to the British Legation in Washington, had recommended her to Mrs. Russell Parmore, a cousin of the Eglintons and the van der Luydens—the best, in short, that New York had to offer. The salary was not as high as Miss Testvalley had hoped for, but her ex-pupil at the Legation had assured her that among the “new” coal and steel people, who could pay more, she would certainly be too wretched. Miss Testvalley was not sure of this. She had not come to America in search of distinguished manners any more than of well-kept railway stations; but she decided on reflection that the Parmore household might be a useful spring-board, and so it proved. Mrs. Russell Parmore was certainly very distinguished, and so were her pallid daughter and her utterly rubbed-out husband; and how could they know that to Miss Testvalley they represented at best a milieu of retired colonels at Cheltenham, or the household of a minor canon in a cathedral town? Miss Testvalley had been used to a more vivid setting, and accustomed to social dramas and emotions which Mrs. Russell Parmore had only seen hinted at in fiction; and as the pay was low, and the domestic economies were painful (Mrs. Russell Parmore would have thought it ostentatious and vulgar to live largely), Miss Testvalley, after conscientiously “finishing” Miss Parmore (a young lady whom Nature seemed scarcely to have begun), decided to seek, in a different field, ampler opportunities of action. She consulted a New York governesses’ agency, and learned that the “new people” would give “almost anything” for such social training as an accomplished European governess could impart. Miss Testvalley fixed a maximum wage, and in a few days was notified by the agency that Mrs. Tracy St. George was ready to engage her. “It was Mrs. Russell Parmore’s reference that did it,” said the black-wigged lady at the desk as they exchanged fees and congratulations. “In New York she counts more than all your duchesses”; and Miss Testvalley again