“What an old frump the mother is!” was Mrs. Glow’s comment to Stanhope, when she next met him; “but she is immensely amusing.”

“She is a kind-hearted, motherly woman,” replied King, a little sharply.

“Oh, motherly!  Has it come to that?  I do believe you are more than half gone.  The girl is pretty; she has a beautiful figure; but my gracious! her parents are impossible—­just impossible.  And don’t you think she’s a little too intellectual for society?  I don’t mean too intellectual, of course, but too mental, don’t you know—­shows that first.  You know what I mean.”

“But, Penelope, I thought it was the fashion now to be intellectual—­go in for reading, and literary clubs, Dante and Shakespeare, and political economy, and all that.”

“Yes, I belong to three clubs.  I’m going to one tomorrow morning.  We are going to take up the ‘Disestablishment of the English Church.’  That’s different; we make it fit into social life somehow, and it doesn’t interfere.  I’ll tell you what, Stanhope, I’ll take Miss Benson to the Town and County Club next Saturday.”

“That will be too intellectual for Miss Benson.  I suppose the topic will be Transcendentalism?”

“No; we have had that.  Professor Spor, of Cambridge, is going to lecture on Bacteria—­if that’s the way you pronounce it—­those mites that get into everything.”

“I should think it would be very improving.  I’ll tell Miss Benson that if she stays in Newport she must improve her mind,

“You can make yourself as disagreeable as you like to me, but mind you are on your good behavior at dinner tonight, for the Misses Pelham will be here.”

The five-o’clock at Mrs. Bartlett Glow’s was probably an event to nobody in Newport except Mrs. Benson.  To most it was only an incident in the afternoon round and drive, but everybody liked to go there, for it is one of the most charming of the moderate-sized villas.  The lawn is planted in exquisite taste, and the gardener has set in the open spaces of green the most ingenious devices of flowers and foliage plants, and nothing could be more enchanting than the view from the wide veranda on the sea side.  In theory, the occupants lounge there, read, embroider, and swing in hammocks; in point of fact, the breeze is usually so strong that these occupations are carried on indoors.

The rooms were well filled with a moving, chattering crowd when the Bensons arrived, but it could not be said that their entrance was unnoticed, for Mr. Benson was conspicuous, as Irene had in vain hinted to her father that he would be, in his evening suit, and Mrs. Benson’s beaming, extra-gracious manner sent a little shiver of amusement through the polite civility of the room.

“I was afraid we should be too late,” was Mrs. Benson’s response to the smiling greeting of the hostess, with a most friendly look towards the rest of the company.  “Mr. Benson is always behindhand in getting dressed for a party, and he said he guessed the party could wait, and—­”