They were happy to do anything she desired; and as children see through shams more quickly than their elders, it could not be doubted that she had a genuine affection for them.

A child addressed the best side of her nature, and evoked a passion that had never found rest in satisfaction, while her heartiness and womanly beauty appealed to the boy nature with charms to which it yielded unbounded admiration and implicit confidence.
The reception was a wonderful success.

Leaving out of the account the numbers of gentlemen who came to see the revived glories of the Palgrave mansion, there was a large number of men who had been summoned by Mrs.
Dillingham's cards--men who undoubtedly ought to have been in better business or in better company.

They were men in good positions--clergymen, merchants, lawyers, physicians, young men of good families--men whose wives and mothers and sisters entertained an uncharitable opinion of that lady; but for this one courtesy of a year the men would not be called to account.

Mrs.Dillingham knew them all at sight, called each man promptly by name, and presented them all to her dear friend Mrs.Belcher, and then to Col.