She was so interested that she forgot to be afraid.  And by and by when Godmother had drifted off with some one and Mary Alice found herself alone with one man, she was feeling so “folksy” that she looked up at him and laughed.

“Seems as if every one had found a ’burning theme’—­all but us!” she said.

The young man—­he was young, and very good-looking, in an unusual sort of way—­flushed.  “I don’t know any of them,” he said; “I’m a stranger.”

“So am I,” said Mary Alice, “and I don’t know any one either.  But I’d like to know some of these people better; wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” returned the young man.  “I haven’t seen much of people, and I don’t feel at home with them.”

“Oh!” cried Mary Alice, quite excitedly, “you need a fairy godmother to tell you a Secret.”

The young man looked unpleasantly mystified.  “What secret?” he asked.

She started to explain.  He seemed amused, at first, in a supercilious kind of way.  But Mary Alice was so interested in her “burning theme” that she did not notice how he looked.  Gradually his superciliousness faded.

“Let us find a place where you can tell me the Secret,” he said, looking about the drawing-room.  Every place seemed taken.

“There’s a settle in the hall,” suggested Mary Alice.  And they went out and sat on that.  “But I can’t tell you the Secret,” she said.  “Not yet, anyway.”

“Please!” he begged.  “I may never see you again.”

She looked distressed.  “Oh, do you think so?” she said.  “But anyhow I can’t tell you.  I can only tell you up to where the Secret comes in, and then—­if I never see you again, you can think about it; and any time you write to me for the Secret, I’ll send it to you to help you when you need it most.”

“I need it now,” he urged.

“No, you don’t,” she answered.  “I thought I needed it right away, but I wouldn’t have understood it or believed it if I’d heard it then.”  And she told him how it was whispered to her, after she had been kind to the man of many millions.

“And does it work?” he asked, laughing at her story of the toast and tea.

“I don’t know, yet,” she admitted, “I’m just trying it.  That’s another reason I can’t tell you now.  I have to wait until I’ve tried it thoroughly.”

“You’re a nice, modest young person from the backwoods,” laughed Godmother when they were going home, “selecting the largest, livest lion of the evening and running off with him to the safe shelter of the hall.”

“Lion?” said Mary Alice, wonderingly.  “What lion?”

“The young man you kept so shamelessly to yourself nearly all evening.”

“I didn’t know he was any kind of a lion,” apologized Mary Alice, humbly.  “He just seemed to be——­” She stopped, and her eyes danced delightedly.  “I was trying the Secret on him,” she went on, “and I believe it worked.”