Angelina was smiling broadly, "grinning from ear to ear" some persons would have expressed it, as she ushered two visitors into the room where Miss South, Julia, and Pamela were sitting one afternoon toward six o'clock, for Pamela was one of the residents at the Mansion.

"Why, Philip; why, Tom!" cried Julia, rising from the lounge where she was looking over a folio of engravings, "this is a pleasure."

"Yes, we thought we'd accept promptly your kind invitation to drop in upon you at any time, so that we could see the Mansion and its contents just as they are."

"Oh, yes, they are always ready for inspection."

"We hope that you will ask us to stay to dinner," added Tom, after he had followed Philip's example and had shaken hands with the others.

"Oh, certainly! especially as you have made it so evident that you are ready to accept."

"That is delightful! You see we feared to wait for a formal invitation, lest you might show us only the company side of things, and we are anxious to see you just as you are."

"Ah! we have no company side. We decided in the beginning to welcome our friends at any time, if they would take us just as we were."

"This doesn't look like an institution," said Tom, glancing around the pretty room.

"No, we haven't seen the real inmates yet. I suppose you keep them under lock and key," interposed Philip.

"Hardly," responded Miss South, "because—"

Then, as the door was pushed open for a minute, shouts of merriment from another part of the house showed that if in durance vile, the inmates were at least in full possession of some of their faculties.

Then the party broke up into two groups. Tom in his vivacious way told of his experiences as a fledgling lawyer. This was his first visit to Boston since he had been admitted to the bar, and he described himself as just beginning to believe that he might escape starvation from the fact that one or two clients had made their appearance at his office.

"It's lucky for my friends that a little practice is coming my way, for I was ready, for the sake of business, to set any of them by the ears. Why, the other day when I was out with my uncle, and the cable car stopped too suddenly, I almost hoped that he would sprain his ankle—just a little, that I might have the chance to bring suit against the company."

"How cruel!" exclaimed Julia, into whose ear he had let fall these rash admissions.

While Tom ran on in this frivolous fashion, Philip was talking more seriously with Pamela and Miss South. Indeed, seriousness was a quality that Philip now showed to an extent that seemed strange to those who had known him in his earlier college years. Much responsibility had recently come to him on account of his father's failing health, and in the West he had been so thrown on his own resources that he no longer regarded life as unsatisfactory unless it offered him amusement.

"I have wondered," he was saying to Miss South, "if you really wished me to give that talk on the Western country."

"Yes, indeed, we are very anxious to have it. We are counting on you to open our lecture season."

"Oh, I'm only too happy, although you must remember that I'm not a professional; but my lantern is in order, and I have nearly a hundred slides. Many of them are really fine,—even if I do say it," he concluded apologetically.

"I'm sure they are," responded Miss South, "and I can tell you that we older 'inmates,' as you call us, are equally anxious to hear you."

"You mean, to see the pictures; they will be worth your attention, but as to my speaking—"

interposed Tom mockingly, as he overheard the latter part of the sentence. Whereat Philip, somewhat embarrassed, was glad to see Angelina at the door announcing "Dinner is served," and leading the way with Miss South the others followed them to the dining-room.

As they took their places Philip found himself beside Pamela. He had seen her but two or three times since her Freshman year at Radcliffe, and in consequence would hardly have dared venture to allude to that sugar episode through which he had first made her acquaintance. But Pamela, no longer sensitive about this misadventure, brought it up herself. Though Philip politely persisted that it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to see before him on a Cambridge sidewalk a stream of sugar pouring from an overturned paper-bag, Pamela assured him that to her he had appeared like a hero on that memorable occasion, since he had saved her from a certain amount of mortification.

"But I'm wiser now," she said; "I hadn't studied philosophy then," and she quoted one or two passages from certain ancient authors to show that she had attained a state of indifference to outside criticism.

Gradually Pamela told Philip much about her school, to prove that it wasn't simply philosophy that helped her enjoy her work.

"So it really is your interest in them that makes your pupils so fond of your classes."

Then, in answer to her word of surprise, he added:

"Oh, my little cousin, Emily Dover, one of your most devoted admirers, has been telling me—I believe that you have the misfortune to instruct her."

"Ah, the good fortune! She is a bright little thing, if not a hard student."

"You could hardly expect more from one of our family."

"Why, your sister seems to me fairly intelligent."

Could this be Pamela, actually speaking in a bantering tone, unawed by a young man considerably her senior?

"I am glad," he said a moment later, "that you are surviving not only the experiment of teaching my little cousin, but this experiment at the Mansion."

"Oh, this isn't an experiment, it's—it's—"

"The real thing?"

"Yes, it really is. If you wish to understand it, you must come here some day when the classes are at work. Miss South or Edith will be happy to show you about."

"But I am a working-man now. At the time when I might properly visit the school I am afraid that there would be no classes in session."

"Of course I'm busy myself, too," said Pamela, "and sometimes I feel that I am here on false pretences."

"Remembering your reputation, I don't believe that you are very idle."

"Oh, of course I help; but then some one else could as well do my work."

"Tell me exactly what you do."

But Pamela shook her head, and with all his urging Philip could not make her describe her exact sphere of activity. Yet Miss South or Julia could have told that no resident was more useful than Pamela, who devoted her evenings to the girls, talking to them, playing games, and in all that she did directing their thoughts toward the appreciation of beautiful things. Every Saturday she took two or three to the Art Museum, and later she meant them to see any exhibitions that there might be in town. One or two critics were inclined to laugh at this work. "It would put strange ideas into the heads of the girls. They would want things that they could never own." But Pamela was satisfied when she saw the rapturous glance of appreciation on the faces of Concetta and Inez, the most artistic of the girls, and the awakening interest in the others.

But how could she explain all this to Philip in casual conversation at a dinner-table?

Maggie, helping Angelina, found this, her first experience in waiting on company, very trying. To overcome her timidity Miss South had purposely assigned her to this task. But who could have supposed that she would let the bread fall as she passed it to Philip, tilting the plate so far that a slice or two fell on the table before him.

"There!" and he smiled good-humoredly, "the Mansion realizes the extent of my appetite, and evidently I am to receive more even than I ask for."

Poor Maggie's next mishap was to drop a dessert plate as she started to take it from the sideboard.

"It was because you looked at me so hard," she said afterwards to Angelina; "I couldn't think what you wanted, you were shaking your head so fierce."

"Why, it was the finger-bowl, child. You forgot it. There should be one on every plate. When I told you to get extra things for company, I meant finger-bowls too. We always have them on the dessert plates."

"Oh, yes," said Maggie, as if her not getting them had been the merest oversight, although really this was her first experience in waiting at dinner, and she had not a good memory for the details that had been taught her.

But shy as she was, she did not hesitate to take part in the conversation once or twice. Miss South and the others showed no surprise when twice her voice was heard replying to questions that Philip had expected Miss South or Pamela to answer.

After the older people returned to the library, Angelina confided to Maggie that Mr. Philip Blair was to give a lecture at the Mansion in a week or two. "I know all about it, because Miss Julia told me a few days ago."

Haleema, the little Syrian girl, who was helping Maggie in her dish-washing, paused in her singing to listen to Angelina's accounts of the wonderful adventures that Mr. Blair had had in the West.

"Ho!" said Haleema, "it ain't nothing to go bear-hunting, if you don't get killed. Why, I've had two uncles and ten cousins killed by the Turks," and then she went on singing cheerfully,—

The air to which she sang was "Little Buttercup," and her voice was clear and sweet, but as she began the second stanza,—

Angelina interrupted her. "This isn't the time for singing this song, this is dish-washing time;" and, overawed by Angelina's imperative manner, Haleema was silenced.

As to the lecture itself, it is needless to say that Philip a few evenings later had an appreciative audience. All the girls were in a twitter at the prospect of this their first entertainment, Angelina most of all. She had arranged her hair in an elaborate coiffure, which, she informed Haleema, she had copied from a hairdresser's window in Washington Street.

"Ah, then, perhaps you have one of those things—a whip, I think they call it?"

"A what?"

"A whip, a long piece of hair to tie on, for I did not know that you had so much hair, Miss Angelina."

"Oh, a switch."

Angelina looked at Haleema sharply and made no further reply. Haleema had addressed her by the flattering "Miss Angelina," which Manuel's sister, when none of the residents were present, tried to exact from all the younger girls at the Mansion, and therefore she would not reprove her for her insinuation about "the whip."

Nevertheless Angelina held her head rather stiffly as she filled her part as head usher.

Each girl at the Mansion had been permitted to invite two guests—a girl of her own age and an older person. And almost every one invited was present. Angelina's brother John was the only boy there. He had shot up into a fairly tall youth, with a very intelligent face. He was attending evening school in the city, and working through the day for a little more than his board. Julia knew that she could depend on him to help her when at times Angelina proved refractory. To-night John was to operate the lantern while Philip talked about the views.

The girls held their breath in admiration as slide after slide was thrown on the screen. Gorges, caÑons, mountain-passes followed one another in quick succession. The wonderful caÑon of the Arkansas, the Marshall Pass, the Garden of the Gods, the tree-shaded streets of Colorado Springs, the railroad up Pike's Peak, and all the weird and wonderful sights of the Yellowstone Park.

"He's really very handsome," whispered Nora to Julia during a pause between the pictures when Philip's regular features were thrown in silhouette upon the sheet. Then she continued, "Don't you remember how we used to laugh at him, and call him a dandy, when he was a Sophomore; but now he looks so manly, and his lecture has been really interesting."

Pamela, seated on the other side of Nora, heard these words with surprise. She had not known Philip in the days when he was considered somewhat effeminate.

All the girls expressed their pleasure as each new picture came in sight, and yet I am afraid that their loudest applause was given to a series of colored pictures showing the adventures of a farmer with an obstinate calf that he vainly tried to drive to the barn, succeeding only when he put a cow-bell around his own neck.

At last the lights were turned on, but all were still seated as Angelina rushed to pick up the pointer and to help roll up the screen. There was no real need of her doing this, but she was anxious to impress the two girls whom she had invited from the North End with a sense of her own importance. Just as she had picked up the pointer, standing in full sight of all, she was aware of a titter that was turning into a full laugh. Instinctively she put her hand to her head, and looking around she met the childlike gaze of Haleema, who was holding aloft a braid of black hair.

"Here, Miss Angelina, is your whip—I mean switch."

Conscious of the strange appearance of her head since the towering structure had fallen, annoyed by the smile on the faces of those before her, and dreading the reproofs of her elders, Angelina fled shamefacedly from the room.

Maggie and Concetta and the other young girls were able to bear this mishap with less discomfort than Angelina herself; for the latter in her way was apt to be domineering, and they knew that for a little while she would not come down to the dining-room where chocolate and cakes were to be served.

Serving their guests, the young housekeepers were at their best. Each had her appointed duty. One carried plates and napkins, another arranged the little white cloths on half a dozen small tables placed around the room. One girl poured the chocolate, and another put the whipped cream on the top of each slender cup. None of them hesitated to tell her friends what portion of the feast she had prepared, whether sandwiches, whipped cream, or the wafer-like cookies.

"I wish that Brenda had been here," said Edith, as she and Nora and Philip walked home.

"Oh, Brenda wouldn't give an evening to this kind of thing at this season; she says that it's the gayest winter since she came out."

"I don't see how she can stand going out every evening," rejoined Edith, who was wearing mourning for a relative, and hence was not accepting invitations to dinners and dances.

"I suppose she thinks it her duty to enjoy herself here. She says it pleases her father and mother to have her enjoy herself."

"Girls have strange ideas of duty," remarked Philip, "though it seems to me that those girls at the Mansion have just about the right idea."