"Yo' beau done come, Miss Ella. Ain't you gwine?"

"No, I'm not going to the party, Marthy, but ask him to wait just a
minute."

"He's settin' over yonder in de parlour wid his overcoat on."

"Well, ask him to take it off; I'll be there in a moment." She spoke as
gravely as Marthy had done, yet in her face there was a light play of
humour.

Two years ago she would have thrilled with joy at the thought that
Arthur was waiting for her; but in those two years since her engagement
she had grown to look upon her first love as the gossamer, fairylike
romance of a child. For months she had known that the engagement must be
broken sooner or later; and she knew now, while she listened to Marthy's
shuffling feet hastening to deliver her message, that she must break it
to-night. In the dim pool of her mirror a face looked back at her that
was not the face of Arthur Peyton; she saw it take form there as one
sees a face grow gradually into life from the dimness of dreams. It was,
she told herself to-night, the very face of her dream that she saw.

"Well, I must get it over," she said with a sternness which gave her a
passing resemblance to the Saint Memin portrait of the Reverend
Bartholomew Berkeley; "I've got to get it over to-night, and whatever
happens I've got to be honest." Then, with a last glance at the sleeping
children, she lowered the gas, and went across the darkened hail, which
smelt of pickles and bacon because one end of it was used as a
storeroom.