Kate wondered if the girl would feel that anything had been missing, but Marna seemed to be basking in the happiness of the hour.  The great German prima donna had kissed her with tears in her eyes; the French baritone had spoken his compliments with convincing ardor; dozens had crowded about her with congratulations; and now, at the head of the glittering table in an opulent room, the little descendant of minstrels sat and smiled upon her friends.  A gilded crown of laurel leaves rested on her dark hair; her white neck arose delicately from the yellowed lace and the shining silk; the sunny opals rested upon her shoulders.

“I drink,” cried the French baritone, “to a voice of honey and an ivory throat.”

“To a great career,” supplemented David Fulham.

“And happiness,” Kate broke in, standing with the others and forgetting to be abashed by the presence of so many.  Then she called to Marna:—­

“I was afraid they would leave out happiness.”

Kate might have been the belated fairy godmother who brought this gift in the nick of time.  Those at the table smiled at her indulgently,—­she was so eager, so young, so almost fierce.  She had dressed herself in white without frill or decoration, and the clinging folds of her gown draped her like a slender, chaste statue.  She wore no jewels,—­she had none, indeed,—­and her dark coiled hair in no way disguised the shape of her fine head.  The elaborate Polish contralto across from her, splendid as a mediaeval queen, threw Kate’s simplicity into sharp contrast.  Marna turned adoring eyes upon her; Mrs. Barsaloux, that inveterate encourager of genius, grieved that the girl had no specialty for her to foster; the foreigners paid her frank tribute, and there was no question but that the appraisement upon her that night was high.

As for Mama’s happiness, for which Kate had put in her stipulation, it was coming post-haste, though by a circuitous road.

Mrs. Dennison, who had received tickets from Marna, and who had begged her nephew, George Fitzgerald, to act as her escort, was, in her fashion, too, wondering about the question of happiness for the girl.  She was an old-fashioned creature, mid-Victorian in her sincerity.  She had kissed one man and one only, and him had she married, and sorrowing over her childless estate she had become, when she laid her husband in his grave, “a widow indeed.”  Her abundant affection, disused by this accident of fate, had spent itself in warm friendships, and in her devotion to her dead sister’s child.  She had worked for him till the silver came into her hair; had sent him through his classical course and through the medical college, and the day when she saw him win his title of doctor of medicine was the richest one of her middle life.