I found the rooms a bower of
azaleas, over which the pink-shaded lamps shed a light that touched
Jessy's lace gown with pale rose.

"It's like fairyland, isn't it?" she said, "and the table is so
beautiful. Come and see the table."

She led me into the dining-room and we stood gazing down on the
decorations, while we waited for Sally.

"Who is coming, Jessy?"

"Twelve in all. General Bolingbroke and Mr. Bolingbroke, Mrs. Fitzhugh,
Governor Blenner, Miss Page," she went on reading the cards, "Mr. Mason,
Miss Watson, Colonel Henry, Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Tyler--"

"That will do. I'll know them when I see them. Do you like it, Jessy?"

"Yes, I like it. Isn't my dress lovely?"

"Very, but don't get spoiled. You see Sally has had this all her life,
and she isn't spoiled."

"I don't believe she could be," she responded, for her admiration for
Sally was the most human thing I had ever discovered about her, "and
she's so beautiful--more beautiful, I think, than Bonny Page, though of
course nobody would agree with me."

"Well, she's perfect, and she always was and always will be," I
returned.

"You're a great man, aren't you?" she asked suddenly, turning away from
the table.

"Why, no. What in the world put that into your head?"

"Well, the General told Mr. Cottrel you were a genius, and Mr. Cottrel
said you were the first genius he had ever heard of who measured six
feet two in his stockings."

"Of course I'm not a genius. They were joking."

"You're rich anyway, and that's just as good."

I was about to make some sharp rejoinder, irritated by her insistence on
the distinction of wealth, when the sound of Sally's step fell on my
ears, and a moment later she came down the brilliantly lighted
staircase, her long black lace train rippling behind her. As she moved
among the lamps and azaleas, I thought I had never seen her more
radiant--not even on the night of her first party when she wore the
white rose in her wreath of plaits. Her hair was arranged to-night in
the same simple fashion, her mouth was as vivid, her grey eyes held the
same mingling of light with darkness. But there was a deeper serenity in
her face, brought there by the untroubled happiness of her marriage, and
her figure had grown fuller and nobler, as if it had moulded itself to
the larger and finer purposes of life.

"The house is charming, Jessy is lovely, and you, Ben, are magnificent,"
she said, her eyebrows arching merrily as she slipped her