“The black dress it shall be,” said Mary Virginia, gaily.  She turned to my mother.  “And what do you think, p’tite Madame?  I’ve a rare butterfly for John Flint, that an English duke gave me for him!  The duke is a collector, too, and he’d gotten some specimens from John Flint.  The minute he learned I was from Appleboro he asked me all about him.  He said nobody else under the sky can ‘do’ insects so perfectly, and that nobody except the Lord and old Henri Fabre knew as much about certain of them as John Flint does.  Folks thought the duke was taken up with me, of course, and I was no end conceited!  I hadn’t the ghost of an idea you and John Flint were such astonishingly learned folks, Padre!  But of course if a duke thought so, I knew I’d better think so, too—­and so I did and do!  Think of a duke knowing about folks in little Appleboro!  And he was such a nice old man, too.  Not a bit dukey, after you knew him!”

“We come in touch with collectors everywhere,” I explained.

“And so John Flint has written some sort of a book, describing the whole life history of something or other, and you’ve done all the drawings!  Isn’t it lovely?  Why, it sounds like something out of a pleasant book.  Mayn’t I see collector and collection in the morning?  And oh, where’s Kerry?”

“Kerry,” said my mother gravely, “is a most important personage.  He’s John Flint’s bodyguard.  He doesn’t actually sleep in his master’s bed, because he has one of his own right next it.  Clelie was horrified at first.  She said they’d be eating together next, but the Butterfly Man reminded her that Kerry likes dog-biscuit and he doesn’t.  I figure that in the order of his affections the Butterfly Man ranks Kerry first, Armand and myself next, and Laurence a close third.”

“Oh, Laurence,” said Mary Virginia.  “I’ll be so glad to see Laurence again, if only to quarrel with him.  Is he just as logical as ever?  Has he given the sun a black eye with his sling-shot?  My father’s always praising Laurence in his letters.”

Now my mother adores Laurence.  She patterns upon this model every young man she meets, and if they are not Laurence-sized she does not include them in her good graces.  But she seldom lifts her voice in praise of her favorite.  She is far, far too wise.

“Laurence generally looks in upon us during the evening, if he is not too busy,” she said, non-committally.  “You see, people are beginning to find out what a really fine lawyer Laurence is, so cases are coming to him steadily.”

The trunks had arrived, and Mary Virginia changed into white, in which she glowed and sparkled like a fire opal.  We three dined together, and as she became more and more animated, a pink flush stole into her rather pale cheeks and her eyes deepened and darkened.  She was vividly alive.  One could see why Mary Virginia was classed as a great beauty, although, strictly speaking, she was no such thing.  But she had that compelling charm which one simply cannot express in words.  It was there, and you felt it.  She did not take your heart by storm, willynilly.  You watched her, and presently you gave her your heart willingly, delighted that a creature so lovely and so unaffected and worth loving had crossed your path.