If she had felt any doubt at the name for there were Horns and Horns--the address on the card put the matter beyond question; and she tried to make her charges understand what a precious chance had befallen them.

She did not succeed; they had not the premises, the experience, for a sufficient impression; and she undid her work in part by the effort to explain that Mrs.Horn's standing was independent of money; that though she was positively rich, she was comparatively poor.

Christine inferred that Miss Vance had called because she wished to be the first to get in with them since it had begun to get around.

This view commended itself to Mela, too, but without warping her from her opinion that Miss Vance was all the same too sweet for anything.

She had not so vivid a consciousness of her father's money as Christine had; but she reposed perhaps all the more confidently upon its power.