All passed under the twelve apostles, that decorate the grand portal, and entered the cathedral.  The interior is as fine as the exterior.  The columns are massive, the ceiling groined; the style is the decorated or geometric architecture, that prevailed in Europe in the thirteenth century.  The cardinal’s gothic throne is on the right.  The four altars are of carved French walnut, Tennessee marble and bronze.  Half of the seventy windows are memorials, given by parishes and individuals in various parts of America.  The vicar-general was conducting services.  His impressive manner, aided by the sweet tones of singers and organ, and the sun’s rays changed to rainbows by the stained-glass windows, produced a deep religious feeling in the hearts of the several thousand persons present.

As the party left the church, Leo said, “In 1786, the Kings of France and Spain contributed to the erection of the first cathedral church, St. Peter’s, in New York.”  The Harrises having invited Leo to dinner, said good-bye to him, and in their carriage returned to the Waldorf for lunch.

While the colonel waited near the reception-room, he chanced to look at the stained-glass window over the entrance to the Garden Court.  Here was pictured the village of Waldorf, the birthplace of the original John Jacob Astor.  This pretty little hamlet is part of the Duchy of Baden, Germany, and has been lovingly remembered in the Astor wills.  Here formerly lived the impecunious father of John Jacob Astor and his brother.  Both gained wealth, very likely, because the value of money was first learned in the early Waldorf school of poverty.  It was not an ill north wind that imprisoned young Astor for weeks in the ice of the Chesapeake Bay, as there on the small ship that brought him from Germany, he listened to marvelous tales of fortunes to be made in furs in the northwest.  Shrewdly he determined first to acquire expert knowledge of skins, and on landing he luckily found employment in a fur store in New York at two dollars per week.  This knowledge became the foundation of the vast fortune of the Astor family.  The colonel was told that the Waldorf occupies the site of the town-house of John Jacob Astor, third of the name, and was erected by his son, William Waldorf, ex-minister to Italy.

It was two o’clock when the Harrises entered the main dining-room for their lunch.  The colonel led the party, Alfonso conducting his sister Lucille, the light blue ribbon at her throat of the tint of her responsive eyes.  Mrs. Harris came with Gertrude.  The mother wore a gray gown, and her daughter a pretty silk.  This first entrance of the family to the public dining-room caused a slight diversion among some of the guests at lunch, where not a few rightly surmised who they were.

Few markets in the world rival that of New York.  The coast, streams, and valleys of New England and the Central States, send their best food by swift steamers and express, that the exacting cosmopolitan appetite may be satisfied.