ame glow filtered through him that he had felt on the night when the
two lovers had settled their difficulties, and he had swung back through
the park at peace with all the world.

All this could be seen in the way he threw back his head, smiling right
and left; the way he moved his hands--using them as some men do words or
their eyebrows--now uplifting them in surprise at the first glimpse
of some unexpected face, his long delicate fingers outspread in
exclamations of delight; now closing them tight when he had those of the
new arrival in his grasp--now curving them, palms up, as he lifted to
his lips the fingers of a grande dame. "Keep your eyes on St. George,"
whispered Mrs. Cheston, who never missed a point in friend or foe and
whose fun at a festivity often lay in commenting on her neighbors,
praise or blame being impartially mixed as her fancy was touched. "And
by all means watch his hands, my dear. They are like the baton of an
orchestra leader and tell the whole story. Only men whose blood and
lineage have earned them freedom from toil, or men whose brains throb
clear to their finger-tips, have such hands. Yes! St. George is very
happy to-night, and I know why. He has something on his mind that he
means to tell us later on."

Mrs. Cheston was right: she generally was--St. George did have something
on his mind--something very particular on his mind--a little speech
really which was a dead secret to everybody except prying Mrs.
Cheston--one which was to precede the uncorking of that wonderful old
Madeira, and the final announcement of the engagement--a little speech
in which he meant to refer to their two dear mothers when they were
girls, recalling traits and episodes forgotten by most, but which from
their very loveliness had always lingered in his heart and memory.

Before this important event took place, however, there were some matters
which he intended to look after himself, one of them being the bowl of
punch and its contiguous beverages in the colonel's den. This seemed to
be the storm centre to-night, and here he determined, even at the risk
of offending his host, to set up danger-signals at the first puff of
wind. The old fellows, if they chose, might empty innumerable ladles
full of apple toddy or compounds of Santa Cruz rum and pineapples into
their own persons, but not the younger bloods! His beloved Kate had
suffered enough because of these roysterers. There should be one ball
around Kennedy Square