The door opened upon the sound of voices, and the others came in.

Mrs. Pasmer did not wait for an introduction, but with an affectation of impulse which she felt Mrs. Mavering would penetrate and respect, she went up to the bed and presented herself.  Dan’s mother smiled hospitably upon her, and they had some playful words about their children.  Mrs. Pasmer neatly conveyed the regrets of her husband, who had hoped up to the last moment that the heavy cold he had taken would let him come with her; and the invalid made her guest sit down on the right hand of her bed, which seemed to be the place of honour, while her husband took Dan’s place on the left, and admired his wife’s skill in fence.  At the end of her encounter with Mrs. Pasmer she called out with her strong voice, “Why don’t you get your banjo, Molly, and play something?”

“A banjo?  Oh, do!” cried Mrs. Pasmer.  “It’s so picturesque and interesting!  I heard that young ladies had taken it up, and I should so like to hear it!” She had turned to Mrs. Mavering again, and she now beamed winningly upon her.

Alice regarded the girl with a puzzled frown as she brought her banjo in from another room and sat down with it.  She relaxed the severity of her stare a little as Molly played one wild air after another, singing some of them with an evidence of training in her naive effectiveness.  There were some Mexican songs which she had learned in a late visit to their country, and some Creole melodies caught up in a winter’s sojourn to Louisiana.  The elder sister accompanied her on the piano, not with the hard, resolute proficiency which one might have expected of Eunice Mavering, but with a sympathy which was perhaps the expression of her share of the family kindliness.

“Your children seem to have been everywhere,” said Mrs. Pasmer, with a sigh of flattering envy.  “Oh, you’re not going to stop!” she pleaded, turning from Mrs. Mavering to Molly.

“I think Dan had better do the rheumatic uncle now,” said Eunice, from the piano.

“Oh yes! the rheumatic uncle—­do,” said Mrs. Pasmer.  “We know the rheumatic uncle,” she added, with a glance at Alice.  Dan looked at her too, as if doubtful of her approval; and then he told in character a Yankee story which he had worked up from the talk of his friend the foreman.  It made them all laugh.

Mrs. Pasmer was the gayest; she let herself go, and throughout the evening she flattered right and left, and said, in her good-night to Mrs. Mavering, that she had never imagined so delightful a time.  “O Mrs. Mavering, I don’t wonder your children love their home.  It’s a revelation.”

XXXIV.

“She’s a cat, Dan,” said his mother quietly, and not without liking, when he looked in for his goodnight kiss after the rest were gone; “a perfect tabby.  But your Alice is sublime.”

“O mother—­”

“She’s a little too sublime for me.  But you’re young, and you can stand it.”