“We have to thank Madame de Veaudrey for sending us back a fine young woman,” said Farnham.

“Yes, she is improved,” the widow assented calmly.  “I must show you the letter Madame de Veaudrey wrote me.  Alice is first in languages, first——­”

“In peace, and first in the hearts of her countrywomen,” interrupted Miss Alice, not smartly, but with smiling firmness.  “Let Mr. Farnham take the rest of my qualities for granted, please.”

“There will be time enough for you two to get acquainted.  But this evening I wanted to talk to you about something more important.  The ‘Tribune’ money article says the Dan and Beersheba Railroad is not really earning its dividends.  What am I to do about that, I should like to know?”

“Draw your dividends, with a mind conscious of rectitude, though the directors rage and the ‘Tribune’ imagine a vain thing,” Farnham answered, and the talk was of stocks and bonds for an hour afterward.

When dinner was over, the three were seated again in the library.  The financial conversation had run its course, and had perished amid the arid sands of reference to the hard times and the gloomy prospects of real estate.  Miss Alice, who took no part in the discussion, was reading the evening paper, and Farnham was gratifying his eyes by gazing at the perfect outline of her face, the rippled hair over the straight brows, and the stout braids that hung close to the graceful neck in the fashion affected by school-girls at that time.

A servant entered and handed a card to Alice.  She looked at it and passed it to her mother.

“It is Mr. Furrey,” said the widow.  “He has called upon you.”

“I suppose he may come in here?” Alice said, without rising.

Her mother looked at her with a mute inquiry, but answered in an instant, “Certainly.”

When Mr. Furrey entered, he walked past Mrs. Belding to greet her daughter, with profuse expressions of delight at her return, “of which he had just heard this afternoon at the bank; and although he was going to a party this evening, he could not help stopping in to welcome her home.”  Miss Alice said “Thank you,” and Mr. Furrey turned to shake hands with her mother.

“You know my friend Mr. Farnham?”

“Yes, ma’am—­that is, I see him often at the bank, but I am glad to owe the pleasure of his acquaintance to you.”

The men shook hands.  Mr. Furrey bowed a little more deeply than was absolutely required.  He then seated himself near Miss Alice and began talking volubly to her about New York.  He was a young man of medium size, dressed with that exaggeration of the prevailing mode which seems necessary to provincial youth.  His short fair hair was drenched with pomatum and plastered close to his head.  His white cravat was tied with mathematical precision, and his shirt-collar was like a wall of white enamel from his shoulders to his ears.  He wore white kid gloves, which he secured from spot or blemish as much as possible by keeping the tips of the fingers pressed against each other.  His speech was quicker than is customary with Western people, but he had their flat monotone and their uncompromising treatment of the letter R.