er joy at being alive and at finding everybody else
alive; the way she moved and laughed and bent her pretty head; the
ripples of gay laughter and the low-pitched tone of the warm greetings
that fell from her lips!

No wonder Harry was bursting with pride; no wonder Langdon Willits
heaved a deep sigh when he caught the glance that Kate flashed at Harry
and went out on the porch to get a breath of fresh air; no wonder St.
George's heart throbbed as he watched them both and thought how near all
this happiness had come to being wrecked; no wonder the servants tumbled
over each other in their eagerness to get a view of her face and gown,
and no wonder, too, that the proud, old colonel who ruled his house with
a rod of iron, determined for the first time in his life to lay down
the sceptre and give Kate and Harry full sway to do whatever popped into
their two silly heads.

And our young Lochinvar was fully her match in bearing, dress, and
manners,--every inch a prince and every inch a Rutter,--and with such
grace of movement as he stepped beside her, that even punctilious,
outspoken old Mrs. Cheston--who had forgiven him his escapade, and who
was always laughing at what she called the pump-handle shakes of some
of the underdone aristocrats about her, had to whisper to the nearest
guest--"Watch Harry, my dear, if you would see how a thoroughbred
manages his legs and arms when he wishes to do honor to a woman.
Admirable!--charming! No young man of my time ever did better." And Mrs.
Cheston knew, for she had hobnobbed with kings and queens, her husband
having represented his government at the Court of St. James--which fact,
however, never prevented her from calling a spade a spade; nor was she
ever very particular as to what the spade unearthed.

Yes--a very gallant and handsome young man was our prince as he handed
Kate up the stairs on her way to the dressing-room, and looked it in his
pearl-gray coat with buttons of silver, fluffy white silk scarf, high
dog-eared collar, ivory-white waistcoat, and tight-fitting trousers of
nankeen yellow, held close to the pumps with invisible straps. And a
very gallant and handsome young fellow he felt himself to be on this
night of his triumph, and so thought Kate--in fact she had fallen in
love with him over again--and so too did every one of the young girls
who crowded about them, as well as the dominating, erect aristocrat of
a father, and the anxious gentle mother, who worshipped the