There were plenty of young men and youths, Max’s companion bank-clerks were among them, clear-eyed, keen-faced fellows whom the Lanes liked upon sight and were glad to entertain both for Max’s sake and their own.  Alec and Bob had not been denied the privilege of inviting certain youthful intimates, so it was a somewhat diversified company, in point of age, which laughed and danced and talked and sang, under the lanterns.  For sing they did now and then, when tempted by some popular air from the little orchestra—­which somehow had been enlarged to include several other instruments besides harp and violin, Josephine arguing that there must be sound enough to be heard upon the porch and lawn.  It was a gay company, and the fun was at its height when the last guests to arrive drove up with a proclaiming flourish of a musical horn.

“It’s the Chases—­we must go out and meet them, Max,” and Sally caught at her brother as he was hastening by.  They reached the porch as Neil and Dorothy descended from their car and looked about them.

“Well, of all the surprises!” was young Mrs. Chase’s greeting, as she swept across the porch in a Paris gown which fairly took one’s breath away, as it was disclosed by the falling open of a gorgeous evening wrap.

Jarvis Burnside, looking out of a porch window at the moment, as he fanned one of the “prettiest and jolliest girls,” after a brisk “two-step,” noted the contrast between Dorothy and Sally.  Mrs. Chase was twenty-four, as he happened to know, but she looked considerably older, and one would have said there were at least eight years between them.  Yet Sally, although she seemed so girlish, had the hostess’s pretty air of self-possession which is equal to greeting any number of Parisian gowns and their wearers.

“Yes, we hoped you would enjoy seeing us again with room enough to shake hands in,” and Sally made them welcome with a hearty greeting apiece.

“This you, Sally?” asked Neil Chase, surveying her with interest.  “You look more like sixteen than ever.  Going to put your hair up when you get to be thirty or forty?”

“My hair is as much up as it can be in the circumstances,” retorted Sally, gayly.  “Unless I wear a wig, the best I can do is to tie it this way with a bow.”

“That’s so; we did hear you had a fever in the spring.  You don’t look much like it now—­more like an infant cherub.  Well, Max, this the old place you had left you?  My congratulations.  It’s not half bad, you know—­at least as it looked coming up the drive, by the light of the lanterns.  You must hug yourselves to get out of that six-by-nine flat, if this is a good way out in the country.  Country places are getting to be the thing these days.  Anybody here we know, or is it a neighbourhood blowout?”

Max stiffened—­as he usually did by the time Neil Chase had got out a few of his patronizing sentences.  “I think you’ll find the same set here you’d find in town,” he answered.  “We haven’t asked a crowd—­just enough to be comfortable and have plenty of room.  But we have some of our neighbours here, and jolly people they are, too.”