A century and more ago the founder of the Devon line had come to
America, and invested his savings in land on Manhattan Island. Other
people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after
generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until
now their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of
dollars. They were the richest old family in America, and the most
famous; and in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was
centred all its social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and
formal life, precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon
her raised chair of state, and she wore her jewels even at
breakfast. She was the arbiter of social destinies, and the
breakwater against which the floods of new wealth beat in vain.
Reggie Mann told wonderful tales about the contents of her enormous
mail--about wives and daughters of mighty rich men who flung
themselves at her feet and pleaded abjectly for her favour--who laid
siege to her house for months, and intrigued and pulled wires to get
near her, and even bought the favour of her servants! If Reggie
might be believed, great financial wars had been fought, and the
stock-markets of the world convulsed more than once, because of
these social struggles; and women of wealth and beauty had offered
to sell themselves for the privilege which was so freely granted to
them.

They came to the old family mansion and rang the bell, and the
solemn butler ushered them past the grand staircase and into the
front reception-room to wait. Perhaps five minutes later he came in
and rolled back the doors, and they stood up, and beheld a withered
old lady, nearly eighty years of age, bedecked with diamonds and
seated upon a sort of throne. They approached, and Oliver introduced
them, and the old lady held out a lifeless hand; and then they sat