Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company"--not a
party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family
were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate
neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there
was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played
by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did
not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise
with fashionable gaiety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of
introducing Daniel to the _beau monde_--a push given the timid
eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the
vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be
inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got
a note from one of her guests asking leave to bring along her niece,
who was making her a few weeks' visit. As a matter of course,
however, she returned answer to bring the young lady, and welcome.

Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I
invited him to make his toilet in mine, and, indeed, wanting him to
create a favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_, tying
his cravat and teasing the divinity student look out of his side
hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention,
and when I managed to button his jacket for him so that it showed his
shirt-studs "like a man's," Count d'Orsey could not have felt a more
pleasing sense of his sufficiency for all the demands of the gay
world.

When we reached the parlor we found Pa and and Ma Lovegrove already
receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old
married couples, which, after paying their _devoirs_, fell in