of allowing her guests to wait for her.

"'Lo, my dear," said Mr. Lanley, kissing Mathilde. "What's that you have
on? Never saw it before. Not so becoming as the dress you were wearing
the last time I was here."

Mathilde felt that it would be almost easier to die immediately, and was
revived only when she heard Farron saying:

"Oh, don't you like this? I was just thinking I had never seen Mathilde
looking so well, in her rather more mature and subtle vein."

It was just as she wished to appear, but she glanced at her stepfather,
disturbed by her constant suspicion that he read her heart more clearly
than any one else, more clearly than she liked.

"How shockingly late they are!" said Adelaide, suddenly appearing in
the utmost splendor. She moved about, kissing her father and arranging
the chairs. "Do you know, Vin, why it is that Pringle likes to make the
room look as if it were arranged for a funeral? Why do you suppose they
don't come?"

"Any one who arrives after Adelaide is apt to be in wrong," observed
her husband.

"Well, I think it's awfully incompetent always to be waiting for other
people," she returned, just laying her hand an instant on his shoulder to
indicate that he alone was privileged to make fun of her.

"That perhaps is what the Waynes think," he answered.