invitation, and he had promised the altruistic man, whom he rather liked;
he did not dislike the giver of the tea so much as some other men, and so
he came.

The brave girl whom the matron was preparing to devote to him stood
shrinking with a trepidation which she could not conceal at sight of his
strange massiveness, with his rust-gold hair coming down toward his thick
yellow brows and mocking blue eyes in a dense bang, and his jaw squaring
itself under the rather insolent smile of his full mouth. The matron felt
that her victim teas perhaps going to fail her, when a voice at her ear
said, as if the question were extorted, "Who in the world is that?"

She instantly turned, and flashed out in a few inspired syllables the
fact she had just imparted to her treacherous heroine. "Do let me
introduce him, Miss Lynde. I must do something for him, when he gets up
to me, if he ever does."

"By all means," said the girl, who had an impulse to laugh at the rude
force of Jeff's face and figure, so disproportioned to the occasion, and
she vented it at the matron's tribulation. The matron was shaking hands
with people right and left, and exchanging inaudible banalities with
them. She did not know what the girl said in answer, but she was aware
that she remained near her. She had professed her joy at seeing Jeff
again, when he reached her, and she turned with him and said, "Let me
present you to Miss Lynde, Mr. Durgin," and so abandoned them to each
other.

As Jeff had none of the anxiety for social success which he would have
felt at an earlier period, he now left it to Miss Lynde to begin the
talk, or not, as she chose. He bore himself with so much indifference