The latter residence, at the same time, it must promptly be added, did, on occasion, wake up to opportunity and, as giving itself a frolic shake, send out a score of invitations--one of which fitful flights, precisely, had, before Easter, the effect of disturbing a little our young man's measure of his margin.

Maggie, with a proper spirit, held that her father ought from time to time to give a really considered dinner, and Mr.Verver, who had as little idea as ever of not meeting expectation, was of the harmonious opinion that his wife ought.

Charlotte's own judgment was, always, that they were ideally free--the proof of which would always be, she maintained, that everyone they feared they might most have alienated by neglect would arrive, wreathed with smiles, on the merest hint of a belated signal.

Wreathed in smiles, all round, truly enough, these apologetic banquets struck Amerigo as being; they were, frankly, touching occasions to him, marked, in the great London bousculade, with a small, still grace of their own, an investing amenity and humanity.

Everybody came, everybody rushed; but all succumbed to the soft influence, and the brutality of mere multitude, of curiosity without tenderness, was put off, at the foot of the fine staircase, with the overcoats and shawls.