, and you mustn't dream of anything
but 'yes.'"

So the good woman fended off thanks, and sent the happy girl home with
an enhanced sense of the value of friendship.

XV

THE COMING OUT OF BARBARA

There was a flutter throughout the ballroom when Guilford Duncan, in the
costume of Hamlet, ushered in Barbara Verne, in her Quaker-maid's dress.
The impulses behind the flutter were various, but surprise was the
dominant one.

Nobody had expected the reserved young Virginian to attend the function.
Nobody had dreamed of seeing Barbara Verne there. Still more certainly,
nobody had expected Duncan to escort "the daughter of his landlady," as
one of the chattering mammas spitefully called Barbara.

"Upon my word, the girl is pretty, when she's made up that way," said
another.

"She is more than pretty," quietly interposed Mrs. Will Hallam; "she is
the most beautiful girl in the room. And she is far less 'made up' than
any of the rest. Her costume is simplicity itself. I'm glad the dear
girl is here."

The gracious lady presently beckoned to Duncan, who promptly responded.
Then taking some pains that those about her should hear every word, she
said:

"Thank you, Duncan, for bringing Barbara, and my sincerest
congratulations on your good taste. I was just saying, when I caught
your eye, that she is the most beautiful girl in the room, and certainly
she is the most charming. You must bring her to me for a greeting and
congratulations, when the first set is over. There goes the music, now.
Don't stop to answer me."

Mrs. Hallam's little speech, and the marked favor she showed to Barbara
throughout the evening, rather stimulated, than checked, the malicious
chatter of the half dozen women who were disposed, on behalf of their
daughters, to feel jealous of Bab. But they were at pains that Mrs.
Hallam should not hear them. For that lady was conspicuously the social
queen of the city and, gracious as she was, she had a certain clever way
of making even her politest speeches sting like a whip-lash when she was
moved to rebuke petty meanness of spirit.

"What on earth can young Duncan mean?" asked one of them when the group
had placed distance between themselves and Mrs. Hallam, "by bringing
that girl here? She isn't in society at all."

"I should say not. And Duncan is such an aristocrat, too."

"Perhaps that's it. Maybe he has done this by way of showing his
contempt for Cairo society."

"Oh, no," answered a