“That every prospect pleases
And man (or woman) alone is vile,”

interpolated Evan.

Grape fruit, with a dash of sherry, or the more wholesome sloe-gin, is Miss Lavinia’s compromise with the before-dinner cocktail of society, that is really very awakening to both brain and digestion; and before the quaint silver soup tureen had disappeared, even Martin Cortright had not only come wholly out of his shell, but might have been said to have fairly perched on top of it, before starting on a reminiscent career with his hostess, beginning at one of the monthly meetings of the Historical Society; for though Martin’s past belonged more to the “Second Avenue” faction of the old east side, and Miss Lavinia to the west, among the environs of what had once been Greenwich and Chelsea villages, they had trodden the same paths, though not at the same time.  While Sylvia and the “Professor,” as she at once began to call him, picked up the web of the college loom that takes in threads of silk, wool, and cotton, and mixing or separating them at random, turns out garments of complete fashion and pattern, or misfits full of false starts or dropped stitches that not only hamper the wearers, but sometimes their families, for life.  All that Evan and I had to do was to maintain a sympathetic silence, kept by occasional ejaculations and murmurs from growing so profound as to cause a draught at our corner of the table.  “Yes, we used to go there regularly,” I heard Miss Lavinia say; “when we were girls Eleanor (Barbara’s mother) and I attended the same school—­Miss Black’s,—­Eleanor being a boarding and I a day pupil and a clergyman’s daughter also, which, in those days, was considered a sort of patent of respectability.  Miss Black used to allow her to spend the shorter holidays with me and go to those historical lectures as a matter of course.  We never publicly mentioned the fact that Eleanor also liked to come to my house to get thoroughly warmed and take a bath, as one of Miss Black’s principles of education was that feminine propriety and cold rooms were synonymous, and the long room with a glass roof, sacred to bathing, was known as the ‘refrigerator’; but those atrocities that were committed in the name of education have fortunately been stopped by education itself.  I don’t think that either of us paid much attention to the lectures; the main thing was to get out and go somewhere; yet I don’t think any other later good times were as breathlessly fascinating.

“Mother seldom went, the hermetically sealed, air-proof architecture of the place not agreeing with her; so father, Eleanor, and I used to walk over, crossing the head of Washington Square, until, as we passed St. Mark’s Church and reached the steps of the building, we often headed a procession as sedate and serious as if going to Sunday meeting, for there were fewer places to go in those days.  Once within, we usually crept well up front, for my father was one of the executive committee who sat in the row