Sherry's at eight o'clock."

A bell rang at his elbow, and one of the telephones began to tinkle. He
picked up the receiver and waved them out of the room. Virginia
followed her guide upstairs, feeling more and more with every step she
took that she was indeed a wanderer in some new and enchanted land of
the _Arabian Nights_.



CHAPTER II


COUSIN STELLA

"Well," he said, smiling kindly at her over the bank of flowers which
occupied the centre of the small round table at which they were dining,
"what do you think of it all?"

Virginia shook her head.

"I cannot tell you," she said. "I haven't any words left. It is all so
wonderful. You have never been to our home at Wellham Springs, or else
you would understand."

He smiled.

"I think I can understand," he said, "what it is like. I, too, you know,
was brought up at a farmhouse."