led. It was true, she remarked it for the first time, that his hands
flew over the keys with an air of breezy virtuosity. He raised them from
the keyboard and brought them down again with the action of a snorting
high-stepping horse. When the passage was loud he nearly lifted himself
off the stool with pounding; when it was soft he tickled the ivories
with the delicacy of raindrops, at the same time diminishing his person
till he seemed the size of a fairy. Now and then he tossed his head, as
if champing a bit, and the bunch of black frizz over his left temple
trembled. A decidedly comic figure he appeared to Mrs. Foss.

"I will tell Signor Ceccherelli what you say," she amiably promised. "I
am sure it will please him."

Leslie, whose responsibilities kept her from dancing her young fill at
her own parties, sought Mrs. Hawthorne still later in the evening, when
she thought that lady might have had enough of Mr. Hunt senior sitting
beside her. The heavy old banker was not considered very entertaining,
and everybody in Florence knew his way of sticking at the side of a
good-looking woman. Lest this one, so evidently making herself pleasant,
should be unduly taxed, Leslie stepped in to free her, tactfully
interested the banker in a game of cards going on upstairs, and took the
place he vacated--took it for just a minute, as a bird perches.

"No, you don't!" Mrs. Hawthorne laid a hand on her arm when she seemed
near dashing off to bring somebody else to present. "You've done the
social act till you ought to be tired, if you aren't. Sit here by me a
moment and take it easy. This party doesn't need any nursing. It's the
loveliest party I ever was to."

Leslie looked off in front of her to verify the statement, and
unreluctantly settled down on the little sofa to rest awhile. She liked
Mrs. Hawthorne. One could not help liking her, as she had had occasion
to assert and reassert in defense against a vague body of reasons for
not adopting the new-comer into the sacred circle of friends, or
launching her on the waters of their little world. Now, as they chatted,
she said to herself again that if Mrs. Hawthorne's homeliness of phrase
were not a simple thing of playfulness, a disclaimer of the affectation
of elegance in talk as stilted, bumptious, unsuited to a proper modesty,
it could very well pass for that. Mrs. Hawthorne seldom expressed
herself quite seriously. As she seldom looked serious either, one could
hardly hear her