down.

Mrs. Devon asked them a few questions as to how much of New York
they had seen, and how they liked it, and whom they had met; but
most of the time she simply looked them over, and left the making of
conversation to Oliver. As for Montague, he sat, feeling perplexed
and uncomfortable, and wondering, deep down in him, whether it could
really be America in which this was happening.

"You see," Oliver explained to them, when they were seated in their
carriage again, "her mind is failing, and it's really quite
difficult for her to receive."

"I'm glad I don't have to call on her more than once," was Alice's
comment. "When do we know the verdict?"

"When you get a card marked 'Mrs. Devon at home,'" said Oliver. And
he went on to tell them about the war which had shaken Society long
ago, when the mighty dame had asserted her right to be "Mrs. Devon,"
and the only "Mrs. Devon." He told them also about her wonderful
dinner-set of china, which had cost thirty thousand dollars, and was
as fragile as a humming-bird's wing. Each piece bore her crest, and
she had a china expert to attend to washing and packing it--no
common hand was ever allowed to touch it. He told them, also, how
Mrs. Devon's housekeeper had wrestled for so long, trying to teach
the maids to arrange the furniture in the great reception-rooms
precisely as the mistress ordered; until finally a complete set of
photographs had been taken, so that the maids might do their work by
chart.