the door. It was Nan who always dispensed the hospitalities of the house, whose decision was unalterable. Dick had learned what it was to be sent about his business; only once had he dared to remain without her sovereign permission, and on that occasion he had been treated by her with such dignified politeness that he would rather have been sent to Coventry.

This evening the fates were propitious, and Dick understood that the sceptre of favor was to be extended to him. When the girls had flitted into the little dusky hall he closed the door, and sat down happily bedside Mrs. Challoner, to whom he descanted eloquently of the beauties of Hilberry and the virtues of Ned Trevanion.

Mrs. Challoner listened placidly as the knitting-needles flashed between her long white fingers. She was very fond of Dick, after her temperate fashion; she had known him from a child, and had seen him grow up among them until he had become like a son of the house. Dick, who had no brothers and sisters of his own, and whose parents had not married until they were long past youth, had adopted brotherly airs with the Challoner girls; they called each other by their Christian names, and he reposed in them the confidences that young men are wont to give to their belongings.

With Nan this easy familiarity had of late merged into something different: a reserve, a timidity, a subtile suspicion of change had crept into their intimacy. Nan felt that Dick’s manner had altered, but somehow she liked it better: his was always a sweet bountiful nature, but now it seemed to have deepened into greater manliness. Dick was growing older; 12 Oxford training was polishing him. After each one of his brief absences Nan saw a greater change, a more marked deference, and secretly hoped that no one else noticed it. When the young undergraduate wrote dutiful letters home the longest messages were always for Nan; when he carried little offerings of flowers to his young neighbors, Nan’s bouquet was always the choicest; he distinguished her, too, on all occasions by those small nameless attentions which never fail to please.

Nan kept her own counsel, and never spoke of these things. She said openly that Dick was very nice and very much improved, and that they always missed him sadly during the Oxford terms; but she never breathed a syllable that might make people suspect that this very ordinary young man with the sandy hair was more to her than other young men. Nevertheless Phillis and Dulce knew that such was the case, and Mrs. Challoner understood that the most dangerous enemy to her peace was this lively-spoken Dick.

Dick was very amusing, for he was an eloquent young fellow: nevertheless Mrs. Challoner sighed more than once, and her attention visibly wandered; seeing which, Dick good-humoredly left off talking, and began inspecting the different articles in Nan’s work-basket.

“I am afraid I have given your mother a headache,” he said when they were sitting round the circular table in the low, oddly-shaped dining-room. There was a corner cut off, and the windows were in unexpected places, which made it unlike other rooms; but Dick loved it better than the great dining-room at Longmead; and somehow it never had looked cosier to him than it did this evening. It was somewhat dark, owing to the shade of the veranda: so the lamp was lighted, and the pleasant scent of roses and lilies came through the open windows. A belated wasp hovered round the specimen glasses that Nan had filled; Dick tried to make havoc of the enemy with his table-napkin. The girls’ white dresses suited their fresh young faces. Nan had fastened a crimson rose in her gown; Phillis and Dulce had knots of blue ribbon. “Trevanion does not know what he lost by his obstinacy,” thought Dick, as he glanced round the table.

“What were you and the mother discussing?” asked Dulce, curiously.

“Dick was telling me about his friend. He seemed a very superior young man,” returned Mrs. Challoner. “I suppose you have asked him for your party next week?”

Dick turned very red at this question. “Mater asked him, you may trust her for that. If it were not for father, I think she would turn the whole house out of the windows: every day some one fresh is invited.”

“How delightful! and all in your honor,” exclaimed Dulce, mischievously.

“That spoils the whole thing,” grumbled the heir of the 13 Maynes: “it is a perfect shame that a fellow cannot come of age quietly, without his people making this fuss. I begin to think I was a fool for my pains to refuse the ball.”

“Yes, indeed; just because you were afraid of the supper speeches,” laughed Dulce, “when we all wanted it so.”

“New mind,” returned Dick, sturdily; “the mater shall give us one in the winter, and we will have Godfrey’s band, and I will get all our fellows to come.”

“That will be delightful,” observed Nan, and her eyes sparkled,—already she saw herself led out for the first dance by the son of the house,—but Dulce interrupted her:

“But all the same I wish Dick had not been so stupid about it. No one knows what may happen before the winter. I hate put-off things.”

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,—eh, Miss Dulce?”

“Yes, indeed; that proverb is truer than people think,” she replied, with a wise nod of her head. “Don’t you remember, Nan, when the Parkers’ dance was put off, and then old Mr. Parker died; and nearly the same thing happened with the Normatons, only it was an uncle in that case.”

“Moral: never put off a dance, in case somebody dies.”

“Oh, hush, please!” groaned Nan, in a shocked voice; “I don’t like to hear you talk about such dreadful things. After all, it is such delicious weather that I am not sure a garden-party will not be more enjoyable; and you know, Dulce, that we are to dance on the lawn if we like.”

“And supposing it should rain,” put in that extremely troublesome young person, at which suggestion Dick looked very gloomy.

“In that case I think we must persuade Mrs. Mayne to clear a room for us,” returned Nan, cheerfully. “If your mother consults me,” she continued, addressing Dick, who visibly brightened at this, “I shall recommend her to empty the front drawing-room as much as possible. There is the grand piano, or the band might come in-doors; there will be plenty of room for the young people, and the non-dancers can be drafted off into the inner drawing-room and conservatory.”

“What a head you have!” exclaimed Dick, admiringly; and Phillis, who had not joined in the argument, was pleased to observe that she was quite of Nan’s opinion: dancing was imperative, and if the lawns were wet they must manage in-doors somehow. “It would never do for people to be bored and listless,” finished the young lady, sententiously, and such was Phillis’s cleverness that it was understood at once that the oracle had spoken; but then it was never known for Nan and Phillis to differ.

Things being thus amicably arranged, the rest of the conversation flowed evenly on every other point, such as the arrangements of the tennis-matches in the large meadow, and the exact 14 position of the marquees; but just as they were leaving the table Dick said another word to Nan in a somewhat low voice:

“It is all very well, but this sort of thing does make a fellow feel such a conceited fool.”

“If I were you I would not think about it at all,” she returned, in her sensible way. “The neighborhood will expect something of the kind, and we owe a little to other people; then it pleases your mother to make a fuss, as you call it, and it would be too ungrateful to disappoint her.”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” he returned, in a slightly mollified tone, for he was a modest young fellow, and the whole business