d the confused maid, through the solemn silence,
as all eyes turned towards the door, "here's,--this is,--I mean Miss
Virginia says Miss Virginia Maxwell----" After which confusing and
somewhat embarrassing announcement the maid summarily fled to the
kitchen, and left Virginia to her own devices.

Betty at once came forward, and quite ignoring the error, smiled a
pleasant welcome.

"Miss Bascom, it is very nice to know you at last. We have been so
unlucky, have we not?"

Virginia advanced rustling, and gave Betty a frigid finger-tip, held
shoulder-high, and cast a collective stare at hostess and guests
through her lorgnette, bowing to Maxwell and ignoring his proffered
handshake.

There was an awkward pause. For once even Betty-the-self-possessed was
at a loss for the necessary tactics.

A hearty voice soon filled the empty spaces: "Hello there, Ginty; I
always did say those auto's was a poor imitation of a street-car; when
they get balky and leave you sticking in the road-side and make you
behind-time, you can't so much as get your fare back and walk. None
but royalty, duchesses, and the four-hundred can afford to risk
losing their cup o' tea in them things."

There was a general laugh at Hepsey's sally, and conversation again
resumed its busy buzzing, and Virginia was obliged to realize that her
entry had been something of a frost.

She spent some minutes drawing off her gloves, sipped twice at a cup
of tea, and nibbled once at a cake; spent several more minutes getting
her hands back into her gloves, fixed a good-by smile on her face,
murmured some unintelligible words to her hostess, and departed,
annoyed to realize that the engine of the awaiting car--kept running
to emphasize her comet-like passage through so mixed an assembly--had
become quite inaudible to the company.

"Such an insult!" stormed the lady, as she returned home in high
dudgeon. "I might have been a nobody, the way they treated me. Dad
shall hear of this; and I'll see that he puts them where they belong.
The impudence! And after his t-treating me s-s-so!" she wept with
chagrin, and malice that betokened no good to the rector and his
little wife.

Even so, it is doubtful if the host and hostess would have permitted
themselves to notice the supercilious rudeness of the leader of
Durford "Society," had Hepsey been able to curb her indignation.

As she and Betty and the little maid, assisted by Donald and Nickey
and his helpers, were clear