looked pretty to me before;
but then it makes a good deal of difference where they are," answered
Bart with a low chuckle.

Jane had been watching the two and had noticed. Bart's position and
manner. His easy familiarity of pose offended her. Instinctively she
glanced about the room, wondering if any of her guests had seen it.
That Lucy did not resent it surprised her. She supposed her sister's
recent training would have made her a little more fastidious.

"Come, Lucy," she called gently, moving toward her, "bring Bart over
here and join the other girls."

"All right, Miss Jane, we'll be there in a minute," Bart answered in
Lucy's stead. Then he bent his head and said in a low voice:

"Won't you give me half those blossoms?"

"No; it would spoil the bunch."

"Please--"

"No, not a single one. You wouldn't care for them, anyway."

"Yes, I would." Here he stretched out his hand and touched the blossoms
on her neck.

Lucy ducked her head in merry glee, sprang up, and with a triumphant
curtsy and a "No, you don't, sir--not this time," joined her sister,
followed by art.

The guests were now separated into big and little groups. Uncle Ephraim
and the judge were hob-nobbing around the fireplace, listening to Uncle
Ephraim's stories and joining in the laughter which every now and then
filled the room. Captain Nat was deep in a discussion with Doctor John
over some seafaring matter, and Jane and Mrs. Benson were discussing a
local charity with Pastor Dellenbaugh.

The younger people being left to themselves soon began to pair off, the
white-haired young lawyer disappearing with the older Miss Cromartin
and Bart soon following with Lucy:--the outer porch and the long walk
down the garden path among the trees, despite the chilliness of the
night, seemed to be the only place in which they could be comfortable.

During a lull in the discussion of Captain Nat's maritime news and
while Mrs. Benson was talking to the pastor, Doctor John seized the
opportunity to seat himself again by Jane.

"Don't you think Lucy improved?" she asked, motioning the doctor to a
place beside her.

"She's much more beautiful than I thought she would be," he answered in
a hesitating way, looking toward Lucy, and seating himself in his
favorite attitude, hands in his lap, one leg crossed over the other and
hanging straight beside its fellow; only a man like the doctor, of more
than usual repose and of a certain elegance of form, Jane alwa