"You are quite the handsomest human being I ever saw, Frank--though I
think I said something like that before."

"You are, of course, unprejudiced, lady mother," he laughed back from
the lowest step.

"It's natural I should be--being only a mother," she explained, gayly.

"Ah," she went on, "I am so happy to have you at home with me! _Not_
happy at having asked those people down. They come on the
twenty-seventh."

"Whom have you asked?"

"The Prescotts."

"Good."

"The Porters and Sallie Maddox."

"Better."

"And Anne Lennox."

There was a silence.

"Did I hear you say 'best'?" Mrs. Ravenel inquired.

"By some wanderment of mind, I forgot it," Frank returned, lightly.