D up. Every one (including Mr. Sillerton Jackson) was agreed that old
Catherine had never had beauty--a gift which, in the eyes of New York,
justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings.
Unkind people said that, like her Imperial namesake, she had won her way
to success by strength of will and hardness of heart, and a kind of
haughty effrontery that was somehow justified by the extreme decency and
dignity of her private life. Mr. Manson Mingott had died when she was
only twenty-eight, and had "tied up" the money with an additional
caution born of the general distrust of the Spicers; but his bold young
widow went her way fearlessly, mingled freely in foreign society,
married her daughters in heaven knew what corrupt and fashionable
circles, hobnobbed with Dukes and Ambassadors, associated familiarly
with Papists, entertained Opera singers, and was the intimate friend of
Mme. Taglioni; and all the while (as Sillerton Jackson was the first to
proclaim) there had never been a breath on her reputation; the only
respect, he always added, in which she differed from the earlier
Catherine. Mrs. Manson Mingott had long since succeeded in untying her
husband's fortune, and had lived in affluence for half a century; but
memories of her early straits had made her e