"And you really think I look nicely?" Elizabeth asked this question in tremulous excitement, as she stood before the long pier-glass in her room on the night of her first dinner-party. The maid was on her knees behind her arranging the folds of her train, Miss Joanna stood ready with her cloak, and Miss Cornelia hovered a little way off, admiring the scene. Elizabeth held her head high, there was a brilliant color in her cheeks, her eyes shone like stars. You would hardly have known her for the same girl who had struggled with sad thoughts and disappointed hopes in the twilight only a few days before. This seemed some young princess, to whom the good things of life came naturally, unsought, by the royal prerogative of beauty.

"You—you look lovely," faltered Miss Cornelia, forgetting her principles in the excitement of the occasion "and your dress is sweet."

"It is fortunate I had it cut low, isn't it," said Elizabeth, as she clasped a string of pearls, which had once belonged to her grandmother, about her round white throat. "There, do I look all right? You're sure my skirt hangs well? I wanted a white rose, but we have no pretty ones left." A slight cloud of discontent crossed her face, but vanished instantly; since really, as she said to herself, she looked very nice even without flowers.

"Don't be late," entreated Miss Joanna. "Just think if the dinner should be spoiled!"

"Yes, it would be very bad manners," added Miss Cornelia "not to be punctual."

"I don't know," said Elizabeth, doubtfully. "It's rather countrified to be too early." But still she drew on her gloves and put on her cloak, and started a good half-hour before the appointed time, in deference to Miss Joanna's fears for the dinner and Miss Cornelia's sense of the value of punctuality.

The clock was striking eight as she entered the wide hall of the Van Antwerps's house, and read, or fancied that she did, in the solemn butler's immobile countenance, an assurance that she was unfashionably prompt. The demure little maid who followed him and took Elizabeth's cloak, regretted to inform her that Mrs. Van Antwerp was not quite ready, but would be down directly, and hoped that Miss Van Vorst would excuse her unpunctuality. Elizabeth's heart sank, but the maid was ushering her into the drawing-room, and there was no retreat. Yet she shrank back involuntarily, as the long room yawned before her, empty, except for one person whom she did not know; and thus she stood for a moment hesitating, her warm Titian coloring framed against the dark plush of the portiere, and her white gown falling about her in graceful folds, of a statuesque simplicity almost severe, but from which her youth and rounded curves emerged all the more triumphant. Her heart beat fast and there was a deep burning color in her cheeks, but she held herself erect, with the proud little turn of the head that seemed to come to her by nature.

The tall dark man who was turning over the leaves of a magazine at the end of the room, looked up as she entered and gazed at her for a moment in silence. Their eyes met; for an instant he seemed to hesitate. Then he rose and walked slowly towards her.

"You must let me introduce myself, Miss Van Vorst," he said, and his voice was like his movements, very deliberate, yet it was clear-cut and pleasant in tone. "My name is Gerard. Mrs. Van Antwerp told me I should have the pleasure of taking you in to dinner."

He spoke so quietly and naturally, and seemed to accept the situation with such absolute indifference, that whatever awkwardness it might have contained for a young girl nervous over her first dinner, was instantly removed. Elizabeth felt grateful, and yet perversely a little piqued that this grave, dark man should place her at a disadvantage, that he should be perfectly at home and know exactly what to do, when she was nervous and flustered. But that kind Providence which had endowed Elizabeth with so many good gifts had given her among others a power to cover inward perturbation with a brave show of self-possession.

"I'm terribly early," she was able to say now, quite lightly and easily, though still with that uncomfortable beating of the heart. "My aunts are very old-fashioned, and insist on punctuality as one of the cardinal virtues."

"In which they are quite right, I think," said Mr. Gerard, smiling. "But when you know Mrs. Van Antwerp well, you will have learned that it is the one virtue in which she is utterly lacking."

"I—I don't know her very well," Elizabeth admitted, regretting somewhat that she could not assert the contrary. "I have never even been here before," she added, glancing about the room, whose stateliness was a little overpowering.

"Really! Then wouldn't you—a—like to come into the conservatory and look at the flowers?" suggested Mr. Gerard, who seemed to have charged himself with the duties of host. "Oh, you needn't wait for Mrs. Van Antwerp," he added, smiling, as Elizabeth hesitated. "I know the time when she went to dress, and can assert with confidence that she won't be down for another half-hour."

So Elizabeth found herself led, somewhat against her will, into the famous conservatory, of whose beauties she had often heard; but with which, it must be confessed, she was less occupied than with the man by her side, at whom she cast furtive glances from beneath her long lashes. He was tall—decidedly taller than herself, though she was a tall woman, and rather broadly built than otherwise. His dark, smooth-shaven face, which had lighted up pleasantly when he smiled, was in repose rather heavy and impassive, with an ugly, square chin, that seemed to indicate an indomitable will, of a kind to pursue tenaciously whatever he might desire. In contradiction to this, his eyes, except when a passing gleam of interest or amusement brightened their sombre depths, had a weary indifferent look, as if there were nothing in the world, on the whole, worth desiring.

"And this is the man," thought Elizabeth, "whom I am expected to amuse. He doesn't look as if it would be an easy task. But no doubt Mrs. Bobby has given him the same charge about me, and he is trying, conscientiously, to obey. That's why he's taken me in here to show me the sights, the way they do to the country visitors." Her heart leaped rebelliously at the thought, even while she was saying aloud mechanically: "'What a fine azalea!' I wonder if I look like a countrified production. My gown isn't, at least; but then—he wouldn't appreciate that fact. It probably would be the same to him, if it came out of the Ark; he isn't the sort of man to notice, one way or the other. I don't believe he cares for women—no, nor they for him. He's not at all good-looking, and he must be—thirty-five"—she ventured another glance. "Oh, that, at least. His hair is quite gray on the temples. 'Yes, those orchids are beautiful. I never saw anything like them.' I must do my duty and admire properly; he thinks me very unsophisticated, no doubt. I don't think I like him. Did Mrs. Bobby think it would amuse me to—amuse him? But perhaps he is thinking the same thing about me." And she stole another glance at his face, but could not read, in his half-closed eyes and unmoved expression, any indication of his real feelings.

They had made the round of the conservatory, when suddenly he stopped. "Don't you—want a flower for your gown," he asked. He looked about him reflectively. "Let me see," he said. "You would like it to be white." Elizabeth wondered how he knew that. After a moment's hesitation, he chose a white rose and gave it to her. She fastened it carefully in her gown, where its green leaves formed the only touch of color.

"How does it look?" she asked innocently, and raised her eyes to his, where unexpectedly they encountered an odd gleam, of something that seemed neither wholly interest nor yet amusement, and that made her look down again quickly, while the warm color mantled in her cheeks. It was a moment before he answered her.

"It looks well," he said then, quietly, "and suits your gown." And they sauntered back slowly to the drawing-room.

Mrs. Bobby came hurrying in by the opposite door, fastening as she went the diamond star in her black lace.

"My dear child," she said, kissing Elizabeth, "what must you think of me! It is all Bobby's fault for taking us such a long drive, and I see he is not down yet either, the wretch! But Julian has been entertaining you, so it is all right. I'm afraid though that he has been taking away my character unmercifully, telling you that I am always late, and other pleasing things of the kind."

Gerard's smile again softened his face. "Do me justice, Eleanor," he said. "You know I don't say worse things of my friends behind their backs than I do to their faces."

She laughed. "I should be sorry for them if you did," she returned. "But here," she went on, as voices were heard in the hall, "here, in good time, are the Rector and his wife. What a blessing they didn't arrive sooner!"

The words had hardly left her lips before the Rector and his wife were ushered in, the latter uttering voluble apologies for being late, and laying all the blame on the erratic behavior of the village hackman, who feeling an utter contempt for people who did not keep their own carriages, reserved the privilege of calling for them at what hour he pleased. The theme of his unpunctuality was so engrossing that the Rector's wife would have enlarged on it for some time, had she not caught sight of Elizabeth, and in her surprise subsided into a chair and momentary silence. And then strolled in Bobby Van Antwerp, fair, well-groomed, amiable, and mildly bored at the prospect of entertaining his neighbors; and immediately afterwards followed the Hartingtons, still more bored at the prospect of being entertained; after which they all went in to dinner, and Elizabeth found herself seated between the Rector and Gerard.

"You live here all the year round, don't you?" the latter said to her, somewhere about the third course, when he had given utterance to several other conventional remarks, and she had grown accustomed to the multiplicity of forks at her plate, and had decided that the light of wax candles, beaming softly under rose-colored shades, was eminently becoming to every one. She looked at him now with an odd little challenge in her eyes, called forth, in spite of herself, by the wearied civility of his conversational efforts.

"Yes, I live here all the year round," she said, in her clear, flute-like voice. "I—I'm a country girl, you see."

He smiled. "You are to be congratulated, I think."

"Do you think so?" asked Elizabeth, in genuine surprise.

"Why, yes, I love the country; don't you," he said tranquilly.

She was silent for a moment, her eyes resting absently on the graceful erection of ferns in the centre of the table, which rose, like a fairy island, from a lake of glass. "It's not a conventional thing to say," she answered at last, slowly "but if you want the truth"—

"I always want the truth," said Gerard.

"Well, then, I don't think I do care for the country," she said. "I've had too much of it. I—there are times when I detest it." She spoke with sudden vehemence, and she met his wondering gaze with eyes that were curiously hard.

Gerard's face clouded. "You don't care for the country," he said, slowly, "and yet you live here all the year round?"

"Ah, that's the very reason," she said, lightly. "People always tell you that you don't appreciate your blessings; but how can you reasonably be expected to, when you don't have any voice in choosing them?"

"If you did, you probably wouldn't like them any better," he retorted. "And it would be more annoying to think that you had had a voice in the matter and had chosen wrong."

"Perhaps," said Elizabeth, "but I should like to make the experiment." And she stared again thoughtfully at the feathery forms of the ferns.

"Well, if you had your choice," said Gerard, lazily, "what would you choose as an improvement on the present state of things?"

She turned towards him with a slight start. "What should I choose," she said, slowly "as an improvement on my life just now?"

"Yes, if you had a fairy Godmother," suggested Gerard.

"With unlimited power?" questioned Elizabeth.

He laughed. "Well, not quite that, perhaps," he said, "but—a fairy Godmother who could give you a good deal. A very charming one, too," he added, in a low voice.

Elizabeth knit her brows and pouted out her full lips, in apparently deep reflection. "If I had a fairy Godmother," she said, musingly, "and she were to give me three wishes—three, you know, is the magic number in the fairy tales—why, I should choose first of all, I think, a season in town"—

"Which you might tire of in a month," suggested Gerard.

"Not at all," said Elizabeth, decidedly, "because my second wish would be for the capacity to be always amused."

"And do you really think," said Gerard, "that you would like that—to go through life as if it were a sort of opera bouffe?"

"Why not?" said Elizabeth. "I'm a frivolous person. I confess I like opera bouffe."

"For an evening, perhaps," said Gerard, "but after a time you'd get tired of it—oh, yes, I'm sure you would—and you'd begin to think"—

"Ah, no, I shouldn't," she interrupted him, eagerly "for that's what my third wish should be. I should ask for the power never to think. Thought—thought is horrible." She spoke the last words very low, more to herself than him, and broke off suddenly, as an odd, frightened look crept into her eyes. Gerard watched her in some perplexity.

"This girl," he said to himself "who must be, I suppose, somewhere about twenty, and has seen, according to Eleanor, nothing of the world, talks sometimes like a thoughtless child, and sometimes like a woman of thirty, and an unhappy one at that. I can't quite make her out." Aloud he said, in an odd, dry voice that he had not hitherto used towards her, "Now that you have pretty well in theory at least, reduced yourself to the level of a brainless doll, why not ask, now that you are about it, for the power not to feel? Then you would really be a complete automaton, and nothing on earth could have power to hurt you."

Elizabeth had grown very pale, and her hands were tightly locked together under the table. "Ah," she said, wearily "I've exhausted my three wishes. And, besides, it's too much to ask. No fairy Godmother, I'm afraid, could give one the power not to feel."

"Be thankful for that," he said, quickly. "A woman who has no capacity for suffering is—is—would be unspeakably repellant."

"Would she?" said Elizabeth, dreamily. "I should think, for my part, that she would be rather enviable." She sat staring absently before her, and Gerard did not try to break the silence. In a moment Mrs. Hartington on his other side claimed his attention, and Elizabeth was not sorry. She felt vaguely resentful towards him for having made her think of unpleasant things, which she had resolved not to do that evening. The dinner went on, and she helped herself mechanically to dish after dish which was pressed upon her. The Rector turned to her and made a few labored remarks, adapted as he thought to her youthful intelligence, and she answered them absently. Bobby Van Antwerp told, in a languid way, a funny story for the benefit of the table, and the conversation grew general for awhile. Dinner was nearly over when Gerard said, turning to her with a pleasant smile:

"I'm not a prophet, and yet I am going to venture on a prediction. In a little while, I think, you'll find your fairy Godmother, and have your season in town, though I don't know if the other things will be thrown in; and then some time in the course of it, I'll ask you if you are satisfied, and you'll tell me perhaps, that you are sick of it all, and are pining for the country, the green fields, and—a—the view of the river"—

He stopped as Elizabeth interrupted him flippantly. "Oh, no, never," she cried. "I'd prefer city streets to green fields any day, and as for the river—I've looked at it all my life, and I'm afraid I've exhausted its possibilities." She was quite herself again, her cheeks were pink; she looked up at him with laughing eyes. "Confess that you think me terribly frivolous," she said; "confess that you disapprove of me entirely."

"On the contrary," said Gerard, with rather a cold smile "I think there is a good deal to be said for your point of view—and as for disapproval, that's a priggish sensation that I hope I don't allow myself to feel towards any one. Wait till I see you in town," he went on, more genially "and then perhaps we'll agree better."

"Ah, but you never will see me in town," she said, sadly.

"Never?" he returned, slightly raising his eye-brows. "That's rather a rash prediction. I think I may have the pleasure of meeting you there before very long. You see I believe in fairy Godmothers," he added, lightly, as Mrs. Bobby gave the signal, and, rising, he pushed back Elizabeth's chair.

She paused for a moment, as she gathered up in one hand the soft white folds of her gown. "I wish your faith could perform miracles," she said. And then she followed dreamily in the wake of the well-worn black satin gown, which had been seen, on many another festive occasion, on the broad back of the Rector's wife.

"He does disapprove of me," the girl thought to herself. "He would have liked me better if I were a little bread-and-butter miss, in white muslin and blue ribbons, who babbled of green fields and taught a class in Sunday school. That's the kind of woman he admires. He thinks me hard and flippant, but—I don't care. At least he dropped that weary, society manner. It is something to have inspired him with an emotion of some sort, even if it happens to be disapproval."