eer old
lady by leading him to the girl in white who poured tea.

"Virgie, this is Mr. Ewing."

The girl looked up with that hint of shyness he had before observed in
her. The eyes instantly recalled his own mountain lake when the light
showed it to far, green depths. But they fell at once, for she inclined
her head toward him, seized a cup and demanded sternly, "Cream or
lemon--I mean I'm very glad to know you. Do you take sugar?"

In his own embarrassment he would have told her, but Mrs. Laithe broke
in with her low laugh.

"He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants----"

The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of eyelids toward
Ewing: "I can't remember _what_ they like when they come back the second
time. It's too much to expect."

"Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants more tea, and most of them
are escaping. Talk to Mr. Ewing while I speed them."

The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful glance at the table's
disarray of cups and plates.

"I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met disconsolately in her
lap.

"I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied sympathetically.

"Why do they do so many insane things here?" demanded the girl. "They're
always at something. Town is tiresome."

"But don't you live here?"

"Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in New Hampshire when I
was small, after mamma died. There was no one here to raise me. And now
that I'm raised they want me back, but I shy at things so--dad says I'm
not city broke. I shall hold off another year before I get into this
sort of thing--" She waved an ably disparaging hand toward the backs of
several unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked up to meet his
laugh and laughed prettily with him. The two had found common ground by
some freemasonry of the shy.

"Does it seem like a play to you, too?" he asked; "everyone playing a
part and making you wonder how it's coming out?"

"Well"--she debated--"I used to have that, when I was at school and came
here for holiday times. I was always expecting great things to happen
then. But they never did. You'll be disappointed if you expect them.
Everybody rides down Broadway in the morning and back again at night,
and they make such a fuss about it that you think something worth while
is coming off, but it doesn't. _I_ know." She achieved this with an air
of mellowed cynicism that almost won his respect.

"But things _must_ happen where there's so much li