"Here they are--all of them--and there's Miss Suydam,--too unconscious of us.

How hath the House of Hamil fallen!--" "If you talk that way I won't leave you for one second while we're here!" he said under his breath.
"Nonsense; it only hurts me, not my pride.

And half a cup of unforbidden tea will drown the memory of that insolence--" She bent forward with smiling composure to shake hands with Mrs.Tom O'Hara, a tall, olive-tinted, black-haired beauty; presented Hamil to his hostess, and left him planted, to exchange impulsive amenities with little Mrs.Ascott.
Mrs.Tom O'Hara, a delicate living Gainsborough in black and white, was probably the handsomest woman in the South.

She dressed with that perfection of simplicity which only a few can afford; she wore only a single jewel at a time, but the gem was always matchless.
Warm-hearted, generous, and restless, she loved the character of Lady Bountiful; and, naively convinced of her own unassailable supremacy, played very picturesquely the role of graciousness and patronage to the tenants of her great estates and of her social and intellectual world alike.

Hence, although she went where many of her less fashionable guests might not have been asked to go, she herself paid self-confident homage to intellect as she understood it, and in her own house her entourage was as mixed as her notions of a "salon" permitted.
She was gracious to Hamil on account of his aunt, his profession, and himself.