ime of life when he would be designated an
old beau. He was a personage, too, of his type. Alexina shook hands
with him gaily; she had been used to his coming since she first came
to live with Aunt Harriet and Uncle Austen. Harriet introduced the
others. The girl's spirits rose; she felt it was nice that she should
be knowing them.

And they? What does middle-age feel, looking upon youth, eager-eyed,
buoyant, flushed with the first glow from that unknown about to dawn?

Oh, it was a charming evening. The girl showed she thought it so and
smiled, and the men smiled too, as they joined Harriet in making her
the young centre. Perhaps there was a tender something in the smiles.
Was it for their own gone youth?

One, a Major Rathbone, stayed after the others left. He sat building
little breastworks on the centre-table out of matches taken from the
bronze stand by the lamp, and as he talked he looked over every now
and then at Harriet on the other side.

In the soberer reaction following the breaking up of the group,
Alexina, too, found time to look at Harriet. It was an Aunt Harriet
that she had never seen before. The colour was richly dyeing this
Harriet's cheeks, and the jewel pendant at her throat rose and
trembled and fell, and her white lids fell, too, though she had
laughed when her eyes met laughter and something else in the brown
eyes of the Major fixed on her.

It was of Mr. Marriot Bland the Major was speaking, his smooth, brown
hand caressing his clean-shaven chin.

"So cruelly confident are you cold Dianas," he was saying. "Now, even
a Penelope must hold out the lure of her web to an old suitor, but you
Dianas--"

Alexina laughed. She had jumped promptly into a liking for this lean,
brown man with the keen, humorous eyes and the deliberate yet quick
movements, and now absorbed in her thoughts, was unconscious of her
steadfast gaze fixed on him, until he suddenly brought his eyes to
bear on hers with humorous inquiry.

"Well?" he inquired.

Now Alexina, being fair, showed blushes most embarrassingly, but she
could laugh too.

"What's the conclusion?" he demanded; "or would it be wiser not to
press inquiry?"

Alexina laughed again. She knew she liked this Major.

"I was wondering," she confessed. "You are so different from what I
expected. I heard Aunt Harriet and Uncle Austen discussing one of your
editorials, so I read it. I thought you would be different--fiercer
maybe, and--er--more aggressive.