“I’m sure it will be a splendid party!” cried Lily the enthusiastic.  “How I wish some good fairy would just transport me there in the middle of the evening, so that I might have a peep at you in all your glory!”

“I wish with all my heart you were going too, Lil,” said Everett; “I shan’t know a soul, I’m sure.”  And though he spoke in an airy, matter-of-fact tone, qualms were beginning to shake his bosom as he pictured himself thus launched alone on the tide of London society.

He began to count the days which yet remained to him of happy obscurity; and as Time moves with inexorable footsteps, no matter how earnestly we would hurry or delay him, so at length there remained but a week’s slender barrier between Everett and the fatal date.  For while he would not acknowledge it even yet to himself, all sense of pleasurable anticipation had gradually given place to the most unmitigated condition of fright.

Thus when he awoke on the actual Monday morning preceding the party, he could not at first imagine to what cause he owed the burden of oppression which immediately descended on his breast; just so used he to feel as a boy when awaking to the consciousness of an impending visit to the dentist.  Then all at once he remembered that in four days more Thursday night would have come, and his fate would be sealed.

He carried a sinking spirit to his legal studies all that day and the next, and yet was somewhat cheered on returning home on the Tuesday evening to find a parcel awaiting him from the tailor’s.  He experienced real pleasure in putting on the new suit after dinner and going down to exhibit himself to the girls in the drawing-room.  It was delightful to listen to their exclamations and their praise; to hear Lily declare, “Oh, you do look nice, Ted!  Splendacious!  Doesn’t it suit him well, mammy?”

In that intoxicating moment, Everett felt he could hold his own in any drawing-room in the land; nor could he help inwardly agreeing on catching sight of himself in the chimney-glass that he did look remarkably well in spite of a hairless lip and smooth young cheeks.  He mentally decided to get his hair cut, buy lavender gloves and Parma violets, and casually inquire of Leslie, their “swell” man down at old Braggart’s, whether coloured silk socks were still considered “good form.”

But when he donned those dress clothes for the second time, on the Thursday night itself, he didn’t feel half so happy.  He suffered from “fright” pains in his inside, and his fingers shook so, he spoilt a dozen cravats in the tying.  He got Lily to fix him one at last, and it was she who found him a neat little cardboard box for his flowers, that his overcoat might not crush them.  For, as the night was fine, and shillings scarce with him in those days, he intended walking to his destination.

Of course he was ready much too soon, and spent a restless, not to say a miserable hour in the Brownes’ drawing-room, afraid of starting, yet unable to settle down to anything.  Then, when half-past nine struck, seized with sudden terror lest he should be too late, he made most hasty adieux and rushed from the house.  Only to hear Lily’s light foot-fall immediately following him, and her little breathless cry of “Oh, Ted! you’ve forgotten your latch-key.”