in Chicago to startle you, perhaps not in the world.

She at the punch remarked, casually, to her of the sherbet: "I wonder when
Miss Armstrong will settle matters with Lane? It is the best she can do
now, though he isn't as well worth while as the men she threw over." And
her neighbor replied: "She might do worse than Lane. She could get more
from him than the showy ones." So Lane is the name of the day. They have
gauged you and put you down at Lane. I took an ice and waited--but you
will have to supply the details.

Meantime, you sailed on, with that same everlasting enthusiasm upon your
face that I knew six years ago, until you spied me. How extremely natural
you made your greeting! I confess I believed that I had lived for that
smile six years, and suffered a bad noise for the sound of your voice. It
seemed but a minute until we found ourselves almost alone with the solid
women at the ices. One swift phrase from you, and we had slipped back
through the meaningless years till we stood _there_ in the parlor at Grant
Street, mere boy and girl. The babbling room vanished for a few golden
moments. Then you rustled off, and I believe I told Mrs. Goodrich that
musicales were very nice, for they gave you a chance to talk. And I went
to the dressing-room, wondering what rare chance had brought me again
within the bondage of that voice.

Then, then, dear pinks, you came sailing over the stairs, peeping out from
that bunch of lace. I loitered and spoke. Were the eyes green, or blue, or
gray; ambition, or love, or indifference to the world? I was at my old
puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the butler, who
acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you held them out to
me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for favors. "Write me," you
said; and I write.