Billy, beside her somewhat lachrymose aunt and cousins, shone out, during this visit, as Susan had never known him to do before.  He looked splendidly big and strong and well, well groomed and erect in carriage, and she liked the little compliment he paid her in postponing the German lesson that should have filled the evening, and dressing himself in his best to take her to the Orpheum.  Susan returned it by wearing her prettiest gown and hat.  They set out in great spirits, Susan chattering steadily, in the relief it was to speak her mind honestly, and Billy listening, and now and then shouting out in the laughter that never failed her spirited narratives.

He told her of the Carrolls,—­all good news, for Anna had been offered a fine position as assistant matron in one of the best of the city’s surgical hospitals; Betts had sold a story to the Argonaut for twelve dollars, and Philip was going steadily ahead; “you wouldn’t believe he was the same fellow!” said Billy.  Jimmy and Betts and their mother were to go up in a few days for a fortnight’s holiday in the little shooting-box that some Eastern friends had built years ago in the Humboldt woods.  The owners had left the key with Mrs. Carroll, and she might use the little cabin as much as she liked.

“And what about Jo?” Susan asked.

This was the best news of all.  Jo was to go East for the winter with one of her mother’s friends, whose daughter was Jo’s own age.  They were to visit Boston and Washington, New York for the Opera, Palm Beach in February, and New Orleans for the Mardi Gras.  Mrs. Frothingham was a widow, and had a son at Yale, who would join them for some of the holidays.  Susan was absolutely delighted at the news, and alluded to it over and over again.

“It’s so different when people deserve a thing, and when it’s all new to them,” she said to Billy, “it makes it seem so much more glorious!”

They came out of the theater at eleven, cramped and blinking, and Susan, confused for a moment, was trying to get her bearings, when Billy touched her arm.

“The Earl of Somerset is trying to bow to you, Sue!”

She laughed, and followed the direction of his look.  It was Stephen Bocqueraz who was smiling at her, a very distinguished figure under the lamp-post, with his fur-lined great-coat, his round tortoise-shell eye-glasses and his silk hat.  He came up to them at once, and Susan, pleasantly conscious that a great many people recognized the great man, introduced him to Billy.

He had just gotten back from a long visit in the Southern part of the state, he said, and had been dining to-night with friends at the Bohemian Club, and was walking back to his hotel.  Susan could not keep the pleasure the meeting gave her out of her eyes and voice, and Billy showed a sort of boyish and bashful admiration of the writer, too.

“But this—­this is a very felicitous occasion,” said Mr. Bocqueraz.  “We must celebrate this in some fitting manner!”