The herald., 1898-02-27

with an osculatory good night, mother
and daughter sat down in their night
dresses, after the manner of woman
kind, to talk it over.
"She was by all odds the loveliest
girl" said Miss Raget, tossing her pink
satin slipper to the farthest end of the
room.
"Unquestionably," said the Colonels
wife "And manners so refreshingiy
artless and winsome-the manners of
her mother. Lucretia was thoroughly
well-bred woman"
"And YETI" said the superb
Pauline fell fiat. hopelessly fiat. OF
like a rocket. down like a stick
Mrs. Raget sighed. Not a man
sought her for a second dance after
midnight"
Mrs. Colonel Raget's supremacy in
the smart set was invincible. Not
pnly had she successfully launched the
innumerable daughters of her own
household on the capricious upper crust
Of the social wave and piloted each TO
snug harbors in the way of we'll ap-
pointed establishments and presentable
figure heads that served all the pur-
poses of husbands. but she was the
adored social sponsor of scores OF pref
ty women, who owed to her manlpu-
lations their titles of Madam. While
Mrs Raget's tactics elected admiration,
they eluded analysis. This lady was
credited with being able to determine,
twenty minutes after girl crossed
ball room for the first time whether
she was destined for success or failure.
So unerring was her judgment in this
pivotal matter, that she is said to have
sent home on the occasion of her debut
no less a parsonage than the fourth
Miss Raget; and never was the latter
permitted, during her maidenhood, to
make a second appearance at Patri-
arch. But for once in her long reign,
Mrs. Raget had miscalculated.
The Louis XIV. pendulum chimed
three.
"Well?" said the "superb."
Again the Coloners wife sighed
"There's no alternative. We must
send her home"
The place was a stuffy gable cham
ber in a third-rate hotel at a popular
Virginia summer resort. In all the
loyeliness of it's Partisan artful artless-
ness II ldN-t1lt SON IL Ill iii'ii an eiiii-
bilious mother had dreamed that her
beloved would find the Aladdin's lamp
that would restore them to the station
they once held in the gay world. 1t
was the first time the gown had been
taken from its box since Pauline S
summary departure from the Raget
mansion. Mother and daughter gazed
at the airy, Elusive creation which Mrs.
Ragets generosity had provided, but
only with the detached interest of Vis-
itors to a museum; it did not appeal to
them as a personal possession. Nothing
could be more out of touch with the
life they had been leading in the shah
by little hostelry in which they We're
grateful to have found shelter for the
summer months,-trusting. like the
sparrows. to Providence for a winter
nest. But as her eyes rested on the La
France roses encircling the low bodice
the mother re-lived in fancy the tr-
umphs of her youth, quenched all too
quickly by widowhood and poverty. A
last desperate effort to save the old
homestead had emboldened her to
make her way to the Metropolis and
seek the advice of a discarded suitor
Colonel Raget, who in the interval had
grown rich beyond the dream of ava
rice. In her calculations she had over
looked the Coloners wife,-for she who
had attained that enviable dignity was
an obscure, unconsdered factor in the
bellehood of Lucretia Detmar. Had the
widow been less guileless, she might
have OWNED in Mrs. Colonel Raget''
admiration of Pauline's beauty, tC
which her attention had been called by