But his daughter did not let him get to the door.

"What are you going to do to-night, Papa?" she asked, firmly.

"There is a governor's meeting--"

"Two in a week, Papa?"

Suddenly Mr. Lanley dropped all pretense of not coming, and said he would
be there at eight.

During the rest of the day Mathilde's heart never wholly regained its
normal beat. Not only was she to see Pete again, and see him under the
gaze of her united family, but she was to see this mother of his, whom he
loved and admired so much. She pictured her as white-haired, benignant,
brooding, the essential mother, with all her own mother's grace and charm
left out, yet with these qualities not ill replaced by others which
Mathilde sometimes dimly apprehended were lacking in her own beautiful
parent. She looked at herself in the glass. "My son's wife," was the
phrase in her mind.

On her way up-stairs to dress for dinner she tried to confide her
anxieties to her mother.

"Mama," she said, "if you had a son, how would you feel toward the girl
he wanted to marry?"

"Oh, I should think her a cat, of course," Adelaide answered; and
added an instant later, "and I should probably be able to make him
think so, too."