him out of nowhere, so far as he could detect, that her eyes were
brilliant, that she was graceful and youthful--in a word, that she was
romantically lovely.

He had one of those curious moments that seem to have neither a cause
nor any connection with actual things. While it lasted, he was
disquieted not by thoughts--for he had no definite thoughts--but by a
slight emotion like that caused in a dream by the presence of
something invisible soundless, and yet fantastic. There was nothing
different or new about his mother, except her new black and silver
dress: she was standing there beside him, bending her head a little in
her greetings, smiling the same smile she had worn for the half-hour
that people had been passing the "receiving" group. Her face was
flushed, but the room was warm; and shaking hands with so many people
easily accounted for the pretty glow that was upon her. At any time
she could have "passed" for twenty-five or twenty-six--a man of fifty
would have honestly guessed her to be about thirty but possibly two or
three years younger--and though extraordinary in this, she had been
extraordinary in it for years. There was nothing in either her looks
or her manner to explain George's uncomfortable feeling; and yet it
increased, becoming suddenly a vague resentment, as if she had done
something unmotherly to him.

The fantastic moment passed; and even while it lasted, he was doing
his duty, greeting two pretty girls with whom he had grown up, as
people say, and warmly assuring them that he remembered them very
well--an assurance which might have surprised them "in anybody but
Georgie Minafer!" It seemed unnecessary, since he had spent many
hours with them no longer ago than the preceding August, They had
with them their parents and an uncle from out of town; and George