sorts of things; but in the presence of the portable Boston there he could not help regarding her with a sort of tolerance which he now blushed for; he thought he had been a great ass.  She seemed to know all sorts of nice people, and she strove with generous hospitality to make him have a good time.  She said it was Cabinet Day, and that all the secretaries’ wives were receiving, and she told him he had better make the rounds with them.  He assented very willingly, and at six o’clock he was already so much in the spirit of this free and simple society, so much opener and therefore so much wiser than any other, that he professed a profound disappointment with the two or three Cabinet ladies whose failure to receive brought his pleasure to a premature close.

“But I suppose you’re going to Mrs. Whittington’s to-night!” Miss Anderson said to him, as they drove up to Wormley’s, where she set him down.  Miss Van Hook had long ceased to say anything; Dan thought her a perfect duenna.  “You know you can go late there,” she added.

“No, I can’t go at all,” said Dan.  “I don’t know them.”

“They’re New England people,” urged Miss Anderson; as if to make him try to think that he was asked to Mrs. Whittington’s.

“I don’t know more than half the population of New England,” said Dan, with apparent levity, but real forlornness.

“If you’d like to go—­if you’re sure you’ve no other engagement—­”

“Oh, I’m certain of that?”

“—­we would come for you.”

“Do!”

“At half-past ten, then.”

Miss Anderson explained to her aunt, who cordially confirmed her invitation, and they both shook hands with him upon it, and he backed out of the carriage with a grin of happiness on his face; it remained there while he wrote out the order for his dinner, which they require at Wormley’s in holograph.  The waiter reflected his smile with ethnical warm-heartedness.  For a moment Dan tried to think what it was he had forgotten; he thought it was some other dish; then he remembered that it was his broken heart.  He tried to subdue himself; but there was something in the air of the place, the climate, perhaps, or a pleasant sense of its facile social life, that kept him buoyant in spite of himself.  He went out after dinner, and saw part of a poor play, and returned in time to dress for his appointment with Miss Anderson.  Her aunt was with her, of course; she seemed to Dan more indefatigable than she was by day.  He could not think her superfluous; and she was very good-natured.  She made little remarks full of conventional wisdom, and appealed to his judgment on several points as they drove along.  When they came to a street lamp where she could see him, he nodded and said yes, or no, respectfully.  Between times he talked with Miss Anderson, who lectured him upon Washington society, and prepared him for the difference he was to find between Mrs. Whittington’s evening of invited guests and the Cabinet ladies’ afternoon of volunteer guests.