Harold was full of the party to which he believed he had been invited, and when in the afternoon Dick St. Claire came to the cottage to play with him, he felt a kind of patronizing pity for his friend who was not to share his honor.

‘Perhaps mother will let me come over and help you,’ Dick said, ’I know how they do it.  You mustn’t talk to the people as they come up the stairs, nor even say good-evening, only;

’"Ladies will please walk this way, and gentlemen that!”

And Dick went through with a pantomime performance for the benefit of Harold, who, when the drill was over, felt himself competent to receive the Queen’s guests at the head of the great staircase in Windsor Castle.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said, ’"Ladies this way, and gentlemen that;” but when am I to go down and see the dancing and get some ice-cream?’

On this point Dick was doubtful.  He did not believe, he said, that waiters ever went down to see the dancing, or to get ice cream, until the party was over, and then they ate it in the kitchen, if there was any left.

This was not a cheerful outlook for Harold, whose thoughts were more intent upon cream and dancing than upon showing the people where to go, and it was also the second time the word waiter had been used in connection with what he was expected to do.  But Harold was too young to understand that he was not of the party itself.  Later on it would come to him fast enough, that he was only a part of the machinery which moved the social engine.  Now, he felt like the engine itself, and long before six o’clock he was dressed, and waiting anxiously for his grandmother’s permission to start.’

‘I’ll tell you all about it,’ he said to her.  ’What they do, and what they say, and what they wear, and if I can, I’ll speak to Mr. Arthur Tracy and thank him for mother’s grave-stone.’

By seven o’clock he was on his way to the park, walking rapidly, and occasionally saying aloud with a gesture of his hand to the right and the left, and a bow almost to the ground.

‘Ladies this way,’ and ‘gentlemen that.’

When he reached the house the gas-jets had just been turned up, and every window was ablaze with light from the attic to the basement.

‘My eye! ain’t it swell!’ Harold said to himself, as he stood a moment, looking at the brilliantly lighted rooms.  ’Don’t I wish I was rich and could burn all that gas, and maybe I shall be.  Grandma says Mr. Arthur Tracy was once a poor boy like me; only he had an uncle and I haven’t.  I’ve got do earn my money, and I mean to, and sometimes, maybe, I’ll have a house us big as this, and just such a party, with a boy up stairs to tell ’em where to go.  I wonder now if I’m expected to go into the kitchen door.  Of course not, I’ve got on my Sunday clothes, and am invited to the party.  I shall ring,’

And he did ring—­a sharp, loud ring, which made Mrs. Tracy, who had not yet left her room, start nervously as she wondered who had come so early.