"You're cool enough in all conscience, Mr. Wetherley," said she.

"My dear Miss Newt, 'pon honor," replied Zephyr, beginning to be very red, and wiping his moist brow.

"I call any man cool who would have told St. Lawrence upon the gridiron that he was frying," interrupted Fanny.

"Oh!--ah!--yes!--on the gridiron! Yes, very good! Ha! ha! Quite on the gridiron--very much so! 'Tis very hot here. Don't you think so? It's quite confusing, like--sort of bewildering. Don't you think so, Miss Newt?"

Fanny was leveling her black eyes at him for a reply, but Mr. Wetherley, trying to regulate his hands, said, hastily,

"Yes, quite on the gridiron--very!" and rapidly moved off it by moving on.

"Good evenin', Mrs. Newt," said a voice in another part of the room.

"Good-evenin', marm. I sez to ma, Now ma, sez I, you'd better go to Mrs.

Kingfisher's ball. Law, pa, sez she, I reckon 'twill be so werry hot to Mrs. Kingfisher's that I'd better stay to home, sez she. So she staid.

Well, 'tis dreadful hot, Mrs. Newt. I'm all in a muck. As I was a-puttin'

on my coat, I sez, Now, ma, sez I, I hate to wear that coat, sez I.

A man does git so nasty sweaty in a great, thick coat, sez I. Whew! I'm all sticky."

And Mr. Van Boozenberg worked himself in his garments and stretched his arms to refresh himself.

Mrs. Boniface Newt, to whom he made this oration, had been taught by her husband that Mr. Van Boozenberg was an oaf, but an oaf whose noise was to be listened to with the utmost patience and respect. "He's a brute, my dear; but what can we do? When I am rich we can get rid of such people."

On the other hand, Jacob Van Boozenberg had his little theory of Boniface Newt, which, unlike that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his own breast. Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man.

He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all amenities and decencies of speech. He regarded them as inseparable from his success. He even affected them in the company of those who were peculiarly elegant, and was secretly suspicious of the mercantile paper of all men who were unusually neat in their appearance, and who spoke their native language correctly. The partner of his bosom was the constant audience of his self-glorification.

A little while before, her lord had returned one day to dinner, and said, with a tone of triumph,

"Well, ma, Gerald Bennet & Co. have busted up--smashed all to pieces.

Always knew they would. I sez to you, ma, a hundred times--don't you remember?--Now, ma, sez I, 'tain't no use. He's been to college, and he talks grammar, and all that; but what's the use? What's the use of talkin' grammar? Don't help nothin'. A man feels kind o' stuck up when he's been to college. But, ma, sez I, gi' me a self-made man--a man what knows werry well that twice two's four. A self-made man ain't no time for grammar, sez I. If a man expects to get on in this world he mustn't be too fine. This is the second time Bennet's busted. Better have no grammar and more goods, sez I. You remember--hey, ma?"

When, a little while afterward, Mr. Bennet applied for a situation as book-keeper in the bank of which Mr. Van Boozenberg was president, that officer hung, drew, and quartered the English language, before the very eyes of Mr. Bennet, to show him how he despised it, and to impress him with the great truth that he, Jacob Van Boozenberg, a self-made man, who had no time to speak correctly, nor to be comely or clean, was yet a millionaire before whom Wall Street trembled--while he, Gerald Bennet, with all his education, and polish, and care, and scrupulous neatness and politeness, was a poverty-stricken, shiftless vagabond; and what good had grammar done him? The ruined gentleman stood before the president--who was seated in his large armchair at the bank--holding his hat uncertainly, the nervous smile glimmering like heat lightning upon his pale, anxious face, in which his eyes shone with that singular, soft light of dreams.

"Now, Mr. Bennet, I sez to ma this very mornin'--sez I, 'Ma, I s'pose Mr.

Bennet 'll be wantin' a place in our bank. If he hadn't been so wery fine,' sez I, 'he might have got on. He talks be-youtiful grammar, ma,'"

said the worthy President, screwing in the taunt, as it were; "'but grammar ain't good to eat,' sez I. 'He ain't a self-made man, as some folks is,' sez I; 'but I suppose I'll have to stick him in somewheres,'

sez I--that's all of it."

Gerald Bennet winced. Beggars mustn't be choosers, said he, feebly, in his sad heart, and he thankfully took the broken victuals Jacob Van Boozenberg threw him. But he advised Gabriel, as we saw, to try Lawrence Newt.

Mrs. Newt agreed with Mr. Van Boozenberg that it was very warm.

"I heerd about you to Saratogy last summer, Mrs. Newt; but you ain't been to see ma since you come home. 'Ma,' sez I, 'why don't Mrs. Newt call and see us?' 'Law, pa,' sez she, 'Mrs. Newt can't call and see such folks as we be!' sez she. 'We ain't fine enough for Mrs. Newt,'" said the great man of Wall Street, and he laughed aloud at the excellent joke.

"Mrs. Van Boozenberg is very much mistaken," replied Mrs. Newt, anxiously. "I am afraid she did not get my card. I am very sorry. But I hope you will tell her."

The great Jacob knew perfectly well that Mrs. Newt had called, but he liked to show himself how vast his power was. He liked to see fine ladies in splendid drawing-rooms bowing, down before his ungrammatical throne, and metaphorically kissing his knobby red hand.

"Your son, Abel, seems to enjoy himself werry well, Mrs. Newt," said Mr.

Van Boozenberg, as he observed that youth, in sumptuous array, dancing devotedly with Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut.

"Oh dear, yes," replied Mrs. Newt. "But you know what young sons are, Mr.

Van Boozenberg.'"

The conversation was setting precisely as that gentleman wished, and as he had intended to direct it.

"Mercy, yes, Mrs. Newt! Ma sez to me, 'Pa, what a boy Corlear is! how he does spend money!' And I sez to ma, 'Ma, he do.' Tut, tut! The bills. I have to pay for that bay--! I s'pose, now, your Abel don't lay up no money--ha! ha!"

Mr. Van Boozenberg laughed again, and Mrs. Newt joined, but in a low and rather distressed way, as if it were necessary to laugh, although nothing funny had been said.

"It's positively dreadful the way he spends money," replied she. "I don't know where it will end."

"Oh ho! it's the way with all young men, marm. I always sez to ma she needn't fret her gizzard. Young men will sow their wild oats. Oh, 'tain't nothin'. Mr. Newt knows that werry well. Every man do."

He watched Mrs. Newt's expression as he spoke. She answered,

"I don't know about that; but Mr. Newt shakes his head dismally nowadays about something or other, and he's really grown old."

In uttering these words Mrs. Newt had sealed the fate of a large offering for discount made that very day by Boniface Newt, Son, & Co.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

ANOTHER TURN IN THE WALTZ.

The music streamed through the rooms in the soft, yearning, lingering, passionate, persuasive measures of a waltz. Arthur Merlin had been very intently watching Hope Wayne, because he saw Abel Newt approaching with Mrs. Van Kraut, and he wished to catch the first look of Hope upon seeing him.

Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut, when she waltzed, was simply a circular advertisement of the Van Kraut property. Her slow rising and falling motion displayed the family jewels to the utmost advantage. The same insolent smoothness and finish prevailed in the whole performance. It was almost as perfect as the Paris toys which you wind up, and which spin smoothly round upon the table. Abel Newt, conscious master of the dance and chief of brilliant youth, waltzed with an air of delicate deference toward his partner, and, gay defiance toward the rest of the world.

The performance was so novel and so well executed that the ball instantly became a spectacle of which Abel and Mrs. Van Kraut were the central figures. The crowd pressed around them, and Abel gently pushed them back in his fluctuating circles. Short ladies in the back-ground stood upon chairs for a moment to get a better view; while Mrs. Dagon and Mrs. Orry, whom no dexterous waltzer would ever clasp in the dizzy whirl, spattered their neighborhood with epithets of contempt and indignation, thanking Heaven that in their day things had not quite come to such a pass as that. Colonel Burr himself, my dears, never dared to touch more than the tips of his partner's fingers in the contra-dance.

Hope Wayne had not met Abel Newt since they had parted after the runaway at Delafield, except in his mother's conservatory, and when she was stepping from the carriage. In the mean while she had been learning every thing at once.

As her eyes fell upon him now she remembered that day upon the lawn at Pinewood, when he stood suddenly beside her, casting a shadow upon the page she was reading. The handsome boy had grown into this proud, gallant, gay young man, surrounded by that social prestige which gives graceful confidence to the bearing of any man. He knew that Hope had heard of his social success; but he could not justly estimate its effect upon her.

Of all those who stood by her Arthur Merlin was the only one who knew that she had ever known Abel, and Arthur only inferred it from Abel's resemblance to the sketch of Manfred, which had evidently deeply affected Hope. Lawrence Newt, who knew Delafield, had wondered if Abel and Hope had ever met. Perhaps he had a little fear of their meeting, knowing Abel to be audacious and brilliant, and Hope to be romantic. Perhaps the anxiety with which he now looked upon the waltz arose from the apprehension that Hope could not help, at least, fancying such a handsome fellow. And then--what?

Amy Waring certainly did not know, although Lawrence Newt's eyes seemed to ask hers the question.

Hope heard the music, and her heart beat time. As she saw Abel and remembered the days that were no more, for a moment her cheek flushed--not tumultuously, but gently--and Lawrence Newt and the painter remarked it. The emotion passed, almost imperceptibly, and her eyes followed the dancers calmly, with only a little ache in the heart--with only a vague feeling that she had lived a long, long time.

Abel Newt had not lost Hope Wayne from his attention for a single moment during the evening; and before the interest in the dance was palled, before people had begun to buzz again and turn away, while Mrs. Van Kraut and he were still the spectacle upon which all eyes were directed, he suddenly whirled his partner toward the spot where Hope Wayne and her friends were standing, and stopped.

It was no more necessary for Mrs. Van Kraut to fan herself than if she had been a marble statue. But it is proper to fan one's self when one has done dancing--so she waved the fan. Besides, it was a Van Kraut heir-loom. It came from Amsterdam. It was studded with jewels. It was part of the property.

As for Abel, he turned and bowed profoundly to Miss Wayne. Of course she knew that people were looking. She bowed as if to a mere acquaintance.

Abel said a few words, signifying nothing, to his partner, then he remarked to Miss Wayne that he was very glad indeed to meet her again; that he had not called because he knew she had been making a convent of her aunt's house--making herself a nun--a Sister of Charity, he did not doubt, doing good as she always did--making every body in the world happy, as she could not help doing, and so forth.