Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/40

 drew near, Gladys had been seized with a horror of her plighted lover, and taking her maid with her had fled from Berlin to London, leaving her mother to settle the difficulty, while she amused the London friend to whose house she had been welcomed on her arrival, with mimicry of ponderous Herr Goldzchink's ponderous wooings.

The story of her escapade was soon known, and she became the belle of the London season, dined at Marlboro' House, and afterwards received more invitations than would have sufficed three American belles.

Six months before the opening of our story, Mrs. Carleton, somewhat discouraged, be it said, by her want of success in the matrimonial market, had found it necessary to return to America and attend to some urgent business matters.

Gladys had become in these six months quite at home again in the country which she had not seen in as many years, and after