Nor was it Mrs. Evans, either. "Sarey," as she was called by the head of the house, sat next to Montague at dinner; and he discovered that with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to become homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because he was a stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a shamelessly extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs. Evans took up the subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and kindly personage, who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses, and flap-jacks, and bread fried in bacon-grease, and similar sensible things, while her chef was compelling her to eat pate de foie gras in aspic, and milk-fed guinea-chicks, and biscuits glacees Tortoni. Of course she did not say that at dinner, - she made a game effort to play her part, - with the result of at least one diverting experience for Montague.

Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The men here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly, "I've come to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally amphibious!"

Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added, "Don't you think so?" And he replied, with as little delay as possible, that he had never really thought of it before.

It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you know her?"

"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her.

"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?"

"Yes, I have," he said.

"And so utterly cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked mother - she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that she thought all men were naturally polygamous!"

Later on, Montague came to know "Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon, sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly, "Why in the world do you want to get into Society?" And the poor lady caught her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing that he was in earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and confessed. "It isn't me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with the surrender went a reversion to natural speech.) "It's Mary, and more particularly Anne."