Folly,                    
"Staten Island,          
"April, 188—.

"Dear Mr. Tremain,

"Will you come down to us for as long as you can stay without becoming bored to extinction! Your favourite rooms are waiting you, your favourite horse stands idle in his stall, the yacht is in perfect condition, and this delicious foretaste of summer makes sailing in her delightful. We are bored to death, however, for want of some one out of the common. Come and be that some one. I can offer you a pretty girl, a clever girl, and a girl of the period to flirt with successively; then there is myself, and your little god-daughter, Marianne, for common sense and dulness; while George, poor fellow, is pining for another battle at tennis and billiards with you. The ponies, my new ones, and their mistress, will be at the five-thirty boat to-morrow afternoon, to meet you, so pray don't disappoint,

"Yours most cordially,          
"Esther Newbold."

Nothing loth, Mr. Tremain put himself on board the Castleton the next day, and enjoyed the half-hour's crossing to the island, whose wooded, picturesque shores, clad in fairest green, were a refreshment to his senses, accustomed for so many months to the hard lines and sharp angles of New York. As he stepped off the boat at New Brighton, he was at once attracted by a very small boy, in a very tall hat, top-boots, and silver buttons; then the most perfect of pony-carriages and ponies met his view; and last, but not least, a pretty little woman in a Gainsborough hat, and a light ulster, who put out a welcoming hand, in a heavy driving-glove, as he appeared, and said gaily:

"Oh, Mr. Tremain, this is very good of you. You know I said I should come for you myself. Now, then, are you quite settled to your liking? Let go their heads, Tony; go on, my beauties."

The ponies answered spiritedly to the flick of her whip; and, indeed, pranced off so suddenly that the small atom of humanity, perched up behind, quite lost his dignity, and only retained his equilibrium by super-human efforts.

Once on the Terrace they bowled along at a good pace, and after the usual questions had been asked and answered, Mr. Tremain inquired whom he was to meet at the Folly.

Mrs. Newbold answered with a little laugh: "I think I told you in my letter of the three varieties of graces—a specimen of each—I have prepared for you? Here they are by name, and ticketed with the attributes they pose for, and fondly imagine they possess. A clever girl from Boston of course, Rosalie James—small and dark, and critical—reads all the newest books with the most jaw-breaking names, goes in for all the 'ologies' and 'isms,' the later the better; likes to think herself a disciple of the most advanced agnostic cult, is nothing if not cultured, and pins her artistic canons to those of Burne Jones and Walter Crane; is a working member of the Sorosis Club, the Nineteenth Century, and every other woman's club in the Union; writes for the magazines, and always has an æsthetic novel on the stocks, which never is launched. How do you like this style, Philip?"

"Honestly, not at all," answered Tremain, echoing her thrill of laughter; "from the woman of brains defend me! What have you next to show me?"

"Ah well, she's not so bad as she sounds," said Mrs. Newbold, "I've known her do a great many kind things; and after all it's not her fault, you know, if like the little boy in Punch she fails to take interest in any event subsequent to the Conqueror. And now to number two, my pretty girl, Baby Leonard, and a very pretty girl she is, in a slow, superb Juno-like fashion. I don't know of my own knowledge that she ever shows greater animation than a languid yes, or no, implies; but if you feel a very keen desire to read beneath the tranquillity of her manner, go to Jack Howard for information, she is his latest victim, and he may have touched the depths of even her shallow soul."

"Thank you," returned Tremain, "I do not feel my soul intensely drawn by occult forces—isn't that the correct jargon?—towards that of Miss Leonard; let us allow Jack full innings there."

"Ah, you are very hard to please," cried Mrs. Newbold in pretended petulance. "Now this is really my last and only remaining girl; in my heart of hearts I think she is worth the other two, in spite of her always handicapping herself; enter then Dick Darling, and shouldn't you know by the sound of her name that she is a girl of the period? Pretty? Oh, yes, but more fascinating than pretty; has a brown face, and laughing eyes, and turned-up nose, uses all the latest slang, wears a hard hat, a cut-away jacket, a Stanley necktie, and eye-glass and chain, and carries the slenderest of walking-sticks, smokes her own cigarettes, drinks Bass's ale, and plays a rattling good game at poker; and despite all her mannish affectations, has the best heart in the world. She rides like a bird, pulls an oar with the best, and can give as ugly a twister at tennis as you could wish to see. Now is she more to your liking?"

Mr. Tremain shrugged his shoulders.

"My dear Mrs. Newbold, what can I say? Miss Darling is doubtless a thoroughly good young lady, but more after the hearts and tastes of younger men than such a graybeard as I. Do not, I beg of you, make any efforts in the young-lady line on my behalf, I ask nothing better than a good share of your company, and an hour or two of romps with my little god-daughter. I shall be more than blessed if you will put up with my dulness."

"What a very pretty speech, Philip, it is quite refreshing to my old married ears; very well, you may sacrifice yourself on the altar of decorum and innocence if you like, I will not say you nay. The men of our party I think you know; besides Jack Howard we have handsome Freddy Slade—the beauty of the day—and one or two inoffensive lads to fetch and carry. And so you don't think either of my graces worthy your consideration, Philip? Yet I do believe each one of them owns a good and true heart, in spite of their individual fads."

"I do not doubt it," answered Mr. Tremain; "but seriously, my dear Esther, you must surely know that having suffered once in that way, I am not likely to be easily attracted again. I fancy the woman who could win my cynical and fastidious heart, has not yet come from the other world; she must needs combine all the beauties of the graces, the attributes of the muses, and be withal, like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion. Find me such a divinity, Esther, or else I shall wait for your own little Marianne."

A silence followed Philip's half-jesting, half-bitter reply, broken at last by Mrs. Newbold's lightest laugh, as she asked:

"Do you like my ponies? George gave them to me on my last birthday; Dick Darling christened them, Rock and Taffy; hard and soft, you know, or dependable and doubtful, or any opposing virtues you choose to select. Now then, here we are," as she turned her ponies cleverly over an awkward incline, and dashed through the gates.

"Shall we join the world at lawn-tennis, or will you come in with me and have a cup of tea?"

"With you, if you please," answered Philip, mock-pleadingly. "My dear Mrs. Newbold, don't deliver me into the hands of the Philistines prematurely."

Esther's blithe laugh rang out merrily as they sped up the long avenue, shaded by the rows of graceful elm trees on either side; she brought the ponies to the door with a workmanlike flourish, and scarcely touching Philip's assisting hand, sprang out and was up the low broad steps before him.

"Let us have tea at once, Long. This way, Mr. Tremain."

They entered the library together; it was a large room and the favourite one, par excellence, of all the apartments in that most charming and hospitable of homes, the Folly. On one side ran a broad, covered, outside verandah, on to which opened two large windows