style="font-size:15px;"> "Then you don't find New York lonesome," said Millard, with a falling cadence, seeking to drop the conversation.
"Oh, no! I live near Stuyvesant Square, and I have an aunt in Washington Square of whom I am very fond."
"I am often at the Gouverneurs, on the north side of the Square. I like Washington Square very much," said Millard, getting on solid ground again.
"We visit at the same house. Mrs. Gouverneur is my aunt," said Phillida.
Millard was a little stunned at this announcement. But his habitual tact kept him from disclosing his surprise at finding Miss Callender's affiliations better than he could have imagined. He only said with unaffected pleasure in his voice:
"The Gouverneurs are the best of people and my best friends."
Mr. Hilbrough looked in amusement at his wife, who was manifestly pleased to find that in Phillida she was entertaining an angel unawares. Millard's passion for personal details came to his relief.
"Mrs. Gouverneur," he said, "had a brother and two sisters. You must be the daughter of one of her sisters. One lives, or used to live, in San Francisco, and the other married a missionary."
"I am the missionary's daughter," said Phillida.
Millard felt impelled to redeem his default by saying something to Miss Callender about the antiquity and excellence of her mother's family. If he had been less skillful than he was he might have given way to this impulse; but with the knack of a conversational artist he contrived in talking chiefly to Mrs. Hilbrough to lead the conversation to Miss Callender's distinguished great-grandfather of the Revolutionary period, who was supposed to shed an ever-brightening luster all the way down the line of his family, and Millard added some traditional anecdotes of other ancestors of her family on the mother's side who had played a conspicuous part in the commercial or civic history of New York. All of which was flattering to Miss Callender, the more that it seemed to be uttered in the way of general conversation and with no particular reference to her.
Hilbrough listened with much interest to this very creditable account of Phillida's illustrious descent, and longed for the time when he should have the fun of reminding his wife that he had held the opinion from the beginning that Phillida Callender was good enough for anybody.
Mrs. Hilbrough took Phillida and left the table, Mr. Hilbrough rising as the ladies passed out, as he had been instructed. When he and Millard had resumed their seats the cigars were brought, but when Millard saw that his host did not smoke he did not see why he should punish himself with a cigar and a tête-à-tête with Hilbrough, whom he could see any day at the bank. So by agreement the sitting was soon cut short, and the gentlemen followed the ladies to the drawing-room. Mrs. Hilbrough had planned a conversation with Millard about her reception while Phillida should be left to talk with Mr. Hilbrough. But Phillida's position had been changed during dinner. Mrs. Hilbrough found a new card in her hand. She drew Miss Callender into the talk about the reception, leaving her husband to excuse himself, and to climb the stairs to the third floor, as was his wont, to see that the children had gone to bed well and were not quarreling, and to have a few cheery words with Jack and the smaller ones before they went to sleep. Receptions were nothing to him: the beds on the third floor contained the greater part of the world.
Millard was relieved to find that Mrs. Hilbrough proposed nothing more ambitious than an evening reception. He commended her for beginning in new surroundings in this way.
"You see, Mrs. Hilbrough," he said, "a reception seems to me more flexible than a ball. It is, in a sense, more democratic. There are many good people – people of some position – who do not care to attend a ball, who would be out of place at a ball, indeed, which should be a very fashionable assembly. The party with dancing can come after."
This commendation had an effect opposite to that intended. Mrs. Hilbrough hadn't thought of a ball, and she now suspected that she was going wrong. In proposing a reception she was imitating Mrs. Masters, and she had fancied herself doing the most proper thing of all. To have a reception called democratic, and treated as something comparatively easy of achievement, disturbed her.
"If you think a reception is not the thing, Mr. Millard, I will follow your advice. You see I only know Brooklyn, and if a reception is going to compromise our position in the future I wish you would tell me. I am afraid I can hardly accomplish even that."
But Millard again said that a reception was a very proper thing to begin with. By degrees he drew out a statement of Mrs. Hilbrough's resources for a reception, and he could not conceal from her the fact that they seemed too small, for numerousness is rather indispensable to this species of entertainment. A reception is in its essence entertainment by wholesale.
"If you could give a reception in honor of somebody," he suggested, remembering Philip Gouverneur's suggestion, "it might serve to attract many beyond your own circle, and – and – give you a reason for asking people whom – you know but slightly, if at all."
But Mrs. Hilbrough did not know any proper person to honor with a reception. Her embarrassment was considerable at finding herself so poorly provided with ways and means, and she was slowly coming to the conclusion that she must wait another winter, or take other means of widening her acquaintance. A plan had occurred to Millard by which he could help her out of the difficulty. But as it involved considerable trouble and risk on his part, he rejected it. There was no reason why he should go too far in helping the Hilbroughs. It was not a case for self-sacrifice.
Hilbrough, in the nursery, had found the youngest little girl suffering with a slight cold, – nothing more than a case of infantile sniffles, – but Hilbrough's affection had magnified it into incipient croup or pneumonia, and, after a fruitless search for the vial of tolu and squills, he dispatched the maid to call Mrs. Hilbrough.
When they were left alone, Millard turned to Phillida, who had shown nearly as much disappointment over the possible postponement of Mrs. Hilbrough's project as the projector herself.
"You are deeply interested in this affair, too, Miss Callender," he said.
"I don't care much for such things myself, but I should dislike to see Mrs. Hilbrough disappointed," answered Phillida. "She has been such a good friend to me, and in time of the greatest trouble she was such a friend to my family, and especially" – she hesitated – "to my father, who died two years ago, that I am interested in whatever concerns her happiness or even her pleasure."
Somehow this changed the color of the enterprise in the eyes of Charles Millard. The personality of Miss Callender was interesting to him, and besides she was Mrs. Gouverneur's niece. It seemed worth while gratifying Mrs. Hilbrough at considerable cost if it would give pleasure to this peculiar young lady.
"Well, with such a certificate of Mrs. Hilbrough's qualities," said Millard, after a pause, "we must strain a point and get up this reception for her. We must be good to the good. We can carry this through together, you and I, Miss Callender," he said.
"What can I do?" asked Phillida, opening her large, dark eyes with innocent surprise. "I know nobody."
"You can get Mrs. Gouverneur's countenance, perhaps. That will be a great deal for Mrs. Hilbrough hereafter."
"Perhaps I can get it, with your help, Mr. Millard. My aunt is good hearted, but she has queer notions. She has a great opinion of the social importance of her family." And Mrs. Gouverneur's niece laughed in a way which went to show that she treated with some levity her aunt's estimate of the value of ancestry.
"One couldn't avoid being proud of such forefathers," answered Millard.
"Perhaps
