all, it was rather a simple-hearted thing of Westover to have
either hoped or feared very much for the Vostrands. Society, in the sense
of good society, can always take care of itself, and does so perfectly.
In the case of Mrs. Vostrand some ladies who liked Westover and wished to
be civil to him asked her and her daughter to other afternoon teas, shook
hands with them at their coming, and said, when they went, they were
sorry they must be going so soon. In the crowds people recognized them
now and then, both of those who had met them at Westover's studio, and of
those who had met them at Florence and Lausanne. But if these were merely
people of fashion they were readily, rid of the Vostrands, whom the
dullest among them quickly perceived not to be of their own sort,
somehow. Many of the ladies of Westover's class made Genevieve promise to
let them paint her; and her beauty and her grace availed for several
large dances at the houses of more daring spirits, where the daughters
made a duty of getting partners for her, and discharged it
conscientiously. But there never was an approach to more intimate
hospitalities, and toward the end of February, when good society in
Boston goes southward to indulge a Lenten grief at Old Point Comfort,
Genevieve had so many vacant afternoons and evenings at her disposal that
she could not have truthfully pleaded a previous engagement to the
invitations Jeff Durgin made her. They were chiefly for the theatre, and
Westover saw him with her and her mother at different plays; he wondered
how Jeff had caught on to the notion of asking Mrs. Vostrand to come with
them.

Jeff's introductions at Westover's tea had not been many, and they had
not availed him at all. He had been asked to no Boston houses, and when
other students, whom he knew, were going in to dances, the whole winter
he was socially as quiet, but for the Vostrands, as at the Mid-year
Examinations. Westover could not resent the neglect of society in his
case, and he could not find that he quite regretted it; but he thought it
characteristically nice of Mrs. Vostrand to make as much of the
friendless fellow as she fitly could. He had no doubt but her tact would
be equal to his management in every way, and that she could easily see to
it that he did not become embarrassing to her daughter or herself.

One day, after the east wind had ceased to blow the breath of the
ice-fields of Labrador against the New England coast, and the buds o