“Isn’t that splendid, Uncle Teddy?  Just as I was wishing it!  It’s just like the fairy books!” and, rushing up to the party of new-comers, “My dear Lottie!” cried he, “if I’d only known you were coming I’d have gone after you!”

As he caught her by the hand I was pleased to see her soft eyes brighten with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu looked on naturally with astonishment in every feature.

“Why, Billy!” said she, “you ought not to call a strange young lady’ Lottie!’ Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy.”

“And you must excuse my mother, Lottie,” said Billy, affectionately patting Miss Pilgrim’s rose kid, “for calling you a strange young lady.  You are not strange at all,—­you’re just as nice a girl as there is.”

“There are no excuses necessary,” said Miss Pilgrim, with a bewitching little laugh.  “Billy and I know each other intimately well, Mrs. Lovegrove; and I confess that when I heard the lady aunt had been invited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing to infringe etiquette this evening by coming where I had no previous introduction.”

“Don’t you care!” said Billy, encouragingly.  “I’ll introduce you to every one of our family; I know ’em if you don’t.”

At this moment I came up as Billy’s reinforcement, and fearing lest in his enthusiasm he might forget the canon of society which introduces a gentleman to a lady, not the lady to him, I ventured to suggest it delicately by saying,—­

“Billy, will you grant me the favor of a presentation to Miss Pilgrim?”

“In a minute, Uncle Teddy,” answered Billy, considerably lowering his voice.  “The older people first”; and after this reproof I was left to wait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of introducing to the young lady his father and his mother.

Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with an air of great dignity intrusted her to my care and left us promenading while he went in search of Daniel.  I myself looked in vain for that youth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the last comers.  Miss Pilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in Billy, whom she spoke of as one of the most delightfully original boys she had ever met; in fact, altogether the most fascinating young gentleman she had seen in New York society.  You may be sure it wasn’t Billy’s left ear which burned when I made my responses.

In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of disappointment, that he could find Daniel nowhere.  He could see a light through his keyhole, but the door was locked and he could get no admittance.  Just then Lu came up to present a certain—­no, an uncertain—­young man of the fleet stranded on parlor furniture earlier in the evening.  To Lu’s great astonishment Miss Pilgrim asked Billy’s permission to leave him.  It was granted with all the courtesy of a preux chevalier, on the condition, readily assented to by the lady, that she should dance one Lancers with him during the evening.