Walter’s visit brought back to John a deal of the warmth and freedom which he had not known since he married.  We often live under an insensible pressure of which we are made aware only by its removal.  John had been so much in the habit lately of watching to please Lillie, of measuring and checking his words or actions, that he now bubbled over with a wild, free delight in finding himself alone with Grace and Walter.  He laughed, sang, whistled, skipped upstairs two at a time, and scarcely dared to say even to himself why he was so happy.  He did not face himself with that question, and went dutifully to the library at stated times to write to Lillie, and made much of her little letters.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

If John managed to be happy without Lillie in Springdale, Lillie managed to be blissful without him in New York.

“The bird let loose in Eastern skies” never hastened more fondly home than she to its glitter and gayety, its life and motion, dash and sensation.  She rustled in all her bravery of curls and frills, pinkings and quillings,—­a marvellous specimen of Parisian frostwork, without one breath of reason or philosophy or conscience to melt it.

The Follingsbees’ house might stand for the original of the Castle of Indolence.

             “Halls where who can tell
  What elegance and grandeur wide expand,—­
  The pride of Turkey and of Persia’s land? 
  Soft quilts on quilts; on carpets, carpets spread;
  And couches stretched around in seemly band;
  And endless pillows rise to prop the head: 
  So that each spacious room was one full swelling bed.”

It was not without some considerable profit that Mrs. Follingsbee had read Balzac and Dumas, and had Charlie Ferrola for master of arts in her establishment.  The effect of the whole was perfect; it transported one, bodily, back to the times of Montespan and Pompadour, when life was all one glittering upper-crust, and pretty women were never troubled with even the shadow of a duty.

It was with a rebound of joyousness that Lillie found herself once more with a crowded list of invitations, calls, operas, dancing, and shopping, that kept her pretty little head in a perfect whirl of excitement, and gave her not one moment for thought.

Mrs. Follingsbee, to say the truth, would have been a little careful about inviting a rival queen of beauty into the circle, were it not that Charlie Ferrola, after an attentive consideration of the subject, had assured her that a golden-haired blonde would form a most complete and effective tableau, in contrast with her own dark rich style of beauty.  Neither would lose by it, so he said; and the impression, as they rode together in an elegant open barouche, with ermine carriage robes, would be “stunning.”  So they called each other ma soeur, and drove out in the park in a ravishing little pony-phaeton all foamed over with ermine, drawn by a lovely pair of cream-colored horses, whose harness glittered with gold and silver, after the fashion of the Count of Monte Cristo.  In truth, if Dick Follingsbee did not remind one of Solomon in all particulars, he was like him in one, that he “made silver and gold as the stones of the street” in New York.