Jack stood irresolute for an instant, not knowing whether to make some excuse for his evidently inopportune visit and return later, or to keep his seat until the others had gone.  Miss Felicia, who had not taken her gaze from the lad since he entered the room, called him to her side.

“Now, tell me what you are all doing at home, and how your dear aunt is, and—­Miss Corinne, isn’t it?  And that very bright young fellow who came with you at Ruth’s tea?”

It was the last subject that Jack wanted to discuss, but he stumbled through it as best he could, and ended in hoping, in a halting tone, that Miss MacFarlane was well.

“Ruth!  Oh, she is a darling!  Didn’t you think so?”

Jack blushed to the roots of his hair, but Miss Felicia’s all-comprehensive glance never wavered.  This was the young man whom Ruth had been mysterious about.  She intended to know how far the affair had gone, and it would have been useless, she knew, for Jack to try to deceive her.

“All our Southern girls are lovely,” he answered in all sincerity.

“And you like them better than the New York belles?”

“I don’t know any.”

“Then that means that you do.”

“Do what?”

“Do like them better.”

The boy thought for a moment.

“Yes, and Miss MacFarlane best of all; she is so—­so—­” the boy faltered—­“so sincere, and just the kind of girl you would trust with anything.  Why, I told her all about myself before I’d known her half an hour.”

“Yes, she was greatly pleased.”  The match-making instinct was always uppermost in Miss Felicia’s moves, and then, again, this young man had possibilities, his uncle being rich and he being his only nephew.

“Oh, then she told you!” The boy’s heart gave a great leap.  Perhaps, after all, Ruth had not heard—­at all events she did not despise him.

“No, I told her myself.  The only thing that seemed to worry Ruth was that you had not told her enough.  If I remember right, she said you were very shy.”

“And she did not say anything about—­” Jack stopped.  He had not intended to put the question quite in this way, although he was still in doubt.  Give this keen-eyed, white-haired old lady but an inkling of what was uppermost in his mind and he knew she would have its every detail.

“About what?” Here Miss Felicia’s eyes were suddenly diverted, and became fastened on the short figure of Mr. Isaac Cohen, who had risen to his feet and stood talking in the most confidential way with Morris—­Peter listening intently.  Such phrases as “Better make the columns of marble,” from Morris, and, “Well, I will talk it over with the Rabbi,” from the tailor, reached his ears.  Further relief came when Miss Felicia rose from her chair with her hand extended to Morris, who was already taking leave of Peter and all danger was passed when host and hostess conducted the tailor and the architect to the door; Morris bending over Miss Felicia’s hand and kissing it with the air of a courtier suddenly aroused by the appearance of royalty (he had been completely immersed in Cohen’s talk), and the tailor bowing to her on his way out without even so much as touching the tips of her fingers.