“We can’t carry all these things to the University Club for tea,” said Peter then, when it was nearly five o’clock.  “So let’s go home and have tea with Aunt Clara—­she’d love it!”

Tea at his own home!  Susan’s heart raced—­

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, in duty bound.

“Couldn’t?  Why couldn’t you?”

“Why, because Auntie mightn’t like it.  Suppose your aunt is out?”

“Shucks!” he pondered; he wanted his way.  “I’ll tell you,” he said suddenly.  “We’ll drive there, and if Aunt Clara isn’t home you needn’t come in.  How’s that?”

Susan could find no fault with that.  She got into a carriage in great spirits.

“Don’t you love it when we stop people on the crossings?” she asked naively.  Peter shouted, but she could see that he was pleased as well as amused.

They bumped and rattled out Bush Street, and stopped at the stately door of the old Baxter mansion.  Mrs. Baxter fortunately was at home, and Susan followed Peter into the great square hall, and into the magnificent library, built in a day of larger homes and more splendid proportions.  Here she was introduced to the little, nervous mistress of the house, who had been enjoying alone a glorious coal fire.

“Let in a little more light, Peter, you wild, noisy boy, you!” said Mrs. Baxter, adding, to Susan, “This was a very sweet thing of you to do, my dear, I don’t like my little cup of tea alone.”

“Little cup—­ha!” said Peter, eying the woman with immense satisfaction.  “You’ll see her drink five, Miss Brown!”

“We’ll send him upstairs, that’s what we’ll do,” threatened his aunt.  “Yes, tea, Burns,” she added to the butler.  “Green tea, dear?  Orange-Pekoe?  I like that best myself.  And muffins, Burns, and toast, something nice and hot.  And jam.  Mr. Peter likes jam, and some of the almond cakes, if she has them.  And please ask Ada to bring me that box of candy from my desk.  Santa Barbara nougat, Peter, it just came.”

“Isn’t this fun!” said Susan, so joyously that Mrs. Baxter patted the girl’s arm with a veiny, approving little hand, and Peter, eying his aunt significantly, said:  “Isn’t she fun?”

It was a perfect hour, and when, at six, Susan said she must go, the old lady sent her home in her own carriage.  Peter saw her to the door, “Shall you be going out to-night, sir?” Susan heard the younger man-servant ask respectfully, as they passed.  “Not to-night!” said Peter, and, so sensitive was Susan now to all that concerned him, she was unreasonably glad that he was not engaged to-night, not to see other girls and have good times in which she had no share.  It seemed to make him more her own.

The tea, the firelight, the fragrant dying violets had worked a spell upon her.  Susan sat back luxuriously in the carriage, dreaming of herself as Peter Coleman’s wife, of entering that big hall as familiarly as he did, of having tea and happy chatter ready for him every afternoon before the fire—–­