Forty years ago the house reproduced within and without "the best taste" of the period, and was as bad as the Berkeleys could afford to make it.

Since then fashions had come and gone; yet the hospitable home remained as unchanged as the politics of the host or the figure of the hostess.

The Berkeleys were still content to be "old-fashioned people," with the fine feeling and the indiscriminate taste of an era which had flowered not in architecture but in character, when the standard of living was high and the style in furniture correspondingly low.

To-night the ten guests (the Berkeleys never gave large dinners) had been carefully chosen, and the evening would probably be distinguished by good talk and good wine.

Though they were law-abiding persons to the core, the bitterness of the Eighteenth Amendment had not penetrated to the subterranean darkness where Mr.
Berkeley's treasures were stored.
Mrs.Berkeley, a brisk, compact little woman, with a pretty florid face and the prominent bosom and tapering waist of forty years ago, turned from the Governor as Corinna and the Judge entered, and hurried forward in her animated way, which reminded one of the manner of a child that is trying to make a success of a dolls' party.