“I think it must have,” said Godmother, “for he came up to me, before I left, and exhibited all the signs of a gentleman who wants to be asked to call.  So I invited him to come in to-morrow for a cup of tea.”

“Is he—­is he coming?” asked Mary Alice, “and won’t you please tell me what kind of a lion he is, and what’s his name?”

“He is coming,” said Godmother, smiling mischievously, “and I don’t know whether to tell you his name or not.  Maybe he’d rather do that himself.”

“I don’t care if he doesn’t,” laughed Mary Alice; “he’s a nice man, and he seemed to be real——­” And then she stopped again and looked mysteriously knowing.  And Godmother nodded approvingly.

“I loved the party,” murmured Mary Alice, happily, as Godmother bent over to give her her last good-night kiss.  “I never supposed a party where one didn’t know a soul could be so nice.”

“Knowing or not knowing people makes much less difference—­when you remember the Secret.  Don’t you find it so?” said Godmother.

And Mary Alice assented.  “Yes, oh, yes!  It’s a wonderful magic—­the dear Secret is,” she said.

VII

AT CANDLE-LIGHTIN’ TIME

The next morning, Mary Alice wanted to know who everybody was; and Godmother told her—­every one but “the young man lion” as she called him.  The home they had been to was that of a celebrated editor and man of letters who numbered among his friends the most delightful people of many nations.  The guests represented a variety of talents.  The large, dark, distinctly-foreign looking man was the great baritone of one of the opera houses.  The younger man, with the long, dark hair, was a violinist about whom all New York was talking.  The gray-haired man with the goatee was an admiral.  The gentle-spoken, shy man with the silver hair was a famous Indian fighter of the old frontier days.  The man who spoke informedly of the Children’s Theatre was one of the best-known of American men of letters.  The lady who was anxious to interrogate him about it was one whose fame as an uplifter of humanity has travelled ’round the globe.  This one was a painter, and that one a sculptor, and another was a poetic dramatist.

“My!” sighed Mary Alice, “I’m glad you didn’t tell me before we went.  As nearly as I can remember, I talked to the Admiral about the Fifth Avenue shopwindows, and to the General about the Jumel Mansion—­which he said he had never seen but had always meant to see—­and to the painter—­what did I talk to the painter about?  Oh! my pink beads.  He admired the colour.”

“Yes,” said Godmother, “and if you had known who they were you would probably have tried to talk to the Admiral about ships and sea-fights, and to the painter about the Metropolitan Museum, and would have bored them terribly.  Most real people, I think, like to be taken for what they are rather than for what they may have done.  That is one of the things I learned in my long years in Europe where I was constantly finding myself in conversation with some one I did not know.  We always began on a basis of common humanity, and we soon found our mutual interests, and enjoyed talking about them.  It taught me a great deal about people and the folly of taking any of them on other people’s estimates.”