It seemed to me that I became suddenly sensible of this luxury for the first time. I had certainly been aware that I was in a large and stately house, and that I had been served and banqueted with a princely pride and profusion. But there had, somehow, been through all a sort of simplicity, a sort of quiet, so that I had not thought of the establishment and its operation, even so much as I had thought of Mrs. Makely's far inferior scale of living; or else, what with my going about so much in society, I was ceasing to be so keenly observant of the material facts as I had been at first. But I was better qualified to judge of what I saw, and I had now a vivid sense of the costliness of Mrs. Strange's environment. There were thousands of dollars in the carpets underfoot; there were tens of tho

