arm or any other countenance whenever she should require it. Both the
ladies thanked me for this--taking my professions with no sort of
abatement--and the elder one declared that we were evidently going to be
such a sociable group that it was too bad to have to stay at home. She
asked Mrs. Nettlepoint if there were any one else in our party, and when
our hostess mentioned her son--there was a chance of his embarking but
(wasn't it absurd?) he hadn't decided yet--she returned with
extraordinary candour: "Oh dear, I do hope he'll go: that would be so
lovely for Grace."

Somehow the words made me think of poor Mr. Porterfield's tartan,
especially as Jasper Nettlepoint strolled in again at that moment. His
mother at once challenged him: it was ten o'clock; had he by chance made
up his great mind? Apparently he failed to hear her, being in the first
place surprised at the strange ladies and then struck with the fact that
one of them wasn't strange. The young man, after a slight hesitation,
greeted Miss Mavis with a handshake and a "Oh good-evening, how do you
do?" He didn't utter her name--which I could see he must have forgotten;
but she immediately pronounced his, availing herself of the American
girl's discretion to "present" him to her mother.

"Well, you might have told me you knew him all this time!" that lady
jovially cried. Then she had an equal confidence for Mrs. Nettlepoint.
"It would have saved me a worry--an acquaintance already begun."

"Ah my son's acquaintances!" our hostess murmured.

"Yes, and my daughter's too!" Mrs. Mavis gaily echoed. "Mrs. Allen
didn't tell us _you_ were going," she continued to the young man.