“Very sincerely yours,

“VIRGINIA WALTON ROWLAND.”

Virginia met her aunt at the foot of the stairs, and, slipping an arm about her waist, laughed nervously.

“Well, my dear, to-night we entertain the tug-boat hero.  It’s horrid to feel so, but do you know I wish I had suggested to father that we have the dinner on one of his vessels.  Do you remember last Fall, what fun it was?  I have the impression, don’t you know, that things would be less strained than here.  He would find the atmosphere more adaptable.”

“He?  Oh, the tugman,” laughed her aunt.  “I shouldn’t worry if I were you.”

“I’m not worrying about that,” protested the girl; “but oh, I don’t know—­I hate to have the success of a dinner in the air, especially when you have a sort of reputation in that way, don’t you know.”

“Nonsense,” replied the older woman, glancing admiringly at the tall, lithe girl in her white evening gown as she moved through the drawing-room to the dining-room, where the butler was adding the final deft fillips to a centrepiece of roses, in which a candy yacht was sinking.

“You see,” said the girl, pointing to a dinner card bearing Merrithew’s name, “I am going to place him between you and me.  Will you—­won’t you arrange things so he’ll take you in.  No; never mind!  I’ll arrange that—­you’re always such a dear about such things, and you won’t mind, will you?”

“Certainly not,” smiled her aunt, “I shall ask him to tow me in.”

They both laughed.  Their understanding was perfect.  Ever since the older woman had entered her brother’s house, years before, to care for a motherless child, the bond of sympathy between the two had been of the strongest, and throughout she had remained the best friend and counsellor, if only because she was the wisest.

When Dan entered the Howlands’ drawing-room all the guests had arrived.  He accomplished this difficult feat, which is considered an art in fashionable schools, with easy grace and unconsciousness and received Virginia’s welcome courteously.

He wore a well-fitting blue suit of conventional cut and neither his hands nor his feet seemed to bother him a bit.  And yet among the men of the company he stood out in sharp contrast.  Miss Howland marked this particularly when Oddington presented himself with an air of good-humored camaraderie,—­he, the successful young lawyer, with a growing reputation as a man about town and the glamour which surrounds the most popular all-around man at his university still about him; a man who did well everything he tried to do, and able to give the impression that the things he could not do were not worth the attempt; whose every action, every word, every expression was marked with the undefinable stamp of the metropolis, and the various lessons it teaches.  Merrithew, on the other hand, standing tall and broad-shouldered, looking about him as he talked, with quick, observant