Which sentiment being shared by the master of the house the mistress called the midnight session off and they went upstairs.

CHAPTER XIV

It was a dismal rainy afternoon, and the work of the day having been finished early the girls were ensconced in their little sitting-room reveling in a well-earned rest. By the way of unusual dissipation a teakettle was hissing on the table, while the freshly filled sugar bowl and bits of lemon told of preparations for the cup that cheers.

Stretched out at full length on the floor lay Hester in her favorite att.i.tude. At her feet sprawled Peter Snooks, chewing frantically at a piece of rubber tire which was at once his solace and despair, defying as it did his most strenuous efforts to tear it to bits. Julie, who had donned a neglige and shaken the pins out of her curly hair, was buried in a book, yet with one ear alert lest her father in the adjoining room should stir and want something. Bridget, remarkable to relate, had taken an afternoon out.

Presently Julie dropped her book and curling herself into the depths of the chair was dozing off when Hester said abruptly, "There's a stranger coming!"

Julie started up and gazed about as if expecting some one to loom up before her.

"There is," reiterated Hester.

"Is what?" sleepily.

"A stranger coming."

"How do you know?"

"My nose itches," announced the younger Dale, rubbing the tip of that saucy feature.

"Nonsense! That's an old granny's reason."

"Can't help it if it is. There is only one alternative and that is to kiss a fool. You would not exactly cla.s.s yourself in that category, would you?" turning on her elbow to look at her sister. "Of course if you insist-" and Hester leaned toward her.

Julie gave her a push. "You idiot! go kiss yourself in a mirror." But the doorbell rang.

Julie bounced from her chair and fled down the hall. Hester stifled her desire to laugh and opened the door on a tall, well-built man who stared as he beheld her.

"Why-this is Mr. Renshawe, is it not?" the girl said with perfect composure though inwardly amazed at seeing him. "Won't you come in?"

"How do you do-thanks-I-that is-" he stammered helplessly.

"You wish to see my sister, of course," ushering him in. "We did not meet the other night at Mrs. Lennox's, did we? but you see I heard about you afterward. I'll go and call my sister."

"Oh! no, don't, please, I beg of you. I must apologize for this impertinent intrusion-I've made some abominable mistake!" In the hand in which he was nervously twisting his hat, Hester caught a glimpse of one of their business cards and in a flash the whole purport of his visit was made clear to her.

"I do not think it is a mistake," she said naturally. "I imagine you have come to see us on business, have you not? Won't you sit down, Mr.

Renshawe?"

"Oh, may I? Thanks. Do you do business?" he gasped incredulously, glancing from the piquant girl about the pretty room where no suggestion of anything like work was visible.

"Yes," replied Hester, "all kinds of fancy cooking. Possibly you've seen our cards," she suggested in a desire to help him out.

He produced the one in his hand with the air of a guilty culprit. "Yes, I have," he confessed. "It was given me this afternoon by the manager of Heath & Co. He knows I give a good many bachelor parties in my chambers and recommended these things. But Miss Dale," he protested, "I had no idea it was you and your sister-it never occurred to me."

"Why should it?" asked Hester, "but it is, just the same, and we shall be very glad to fill your order." She went to a desk and brought forth a pad and pencil in a business-like manner.

He sat watching her with a puzzled, utterly perplexed expression drawing his eye-brows together. Suddenly as she returned to her chair opposite him he cried,

"By Jove! I know now, exactly-that's just who you are!" looking into her face with evident relief.

Hester wanted to laugh and say "Is it?" to this ambiguous remark but having a.s.sumed her formal business manner she maintained a discreet silence and waited for him to explain.

"You are little Miss Driscoe's cousin!" he announced.

"Are you the Radnor man who has been visiting at the Blake's plantation?" cried Hester impulsively, forgetting in her excitement that he was to be kept on a strictly business footing.

"I shouldn't wonder," was his smiling reply. "I've been there several times this past winter; in fact I came up from there only last week."

"Oh! did you? Long ago Nannie wrote us that there had been a Radnor man at her birthday party but she quite forgot to mention his name. Oh! I wish Julie had known this the other night! She would have loved a chance to ask you all about the Driscoes. Isn't Nannie the dearest little thing?"

"If I hadn't been a duffer, Miss Dale, I might have placed your sister immediately when I met her, for I have had the minutest descriptions of you both, I a.s.sure you. There was something very baffling about her that night, as if I must have known her or at least seen her before somewhere, but-"

"But you did not expect to see us in society, perhaps?"

He glanced at her as if the better to understand if her tone were cynical, but her bland little smile told him nothing and before he could make any reply she said:

"I am afraid we have strayed too far from important things, Mr.

Renshawe. It is shocking of me to encroach upon your time. Is there anything we can do for you in a business way?" She told Julie afterward she was quite proud of this little speech, for she had been consumed with a desire to ask him a thousand questions about the Driscoes.

Renshawe interpreted it to mean that the chat was at an end and he feared that in some clumsy way he had offended her, but she steered him into a discussion of the order he had come to leave with such a calm matter-of-fact air that he found himself consulting her about salads and cakes with an ease he would not have believed possible when he entered the room. He had never been brought into business relations with a young girl of her position and he admired exceedingly her manner. The order having been arranged quite to his satisfaction he dismissed the subject and made up his mind to have his say in spite of the cue Hester had given him. So as he rose to leave he said:

"I hope you will forgive me, Miss Dale, if I tell you I feel quite as if I knew you and your sister and I am immensely glad to meet you. You see the Blakes took me frequently to Wavertree Hall and Miss Nannie spoke of you so often; she-"

"Dear little Nan," the girl said musingly, "how I should love to see her!"

The man looked as if he would like to echo that sentiment, but he only said as he moved toward the door:

"Will you be very kind, Miss Dale, and let Mrs. Lennox bring me some time to see you and your sister? I have so many messages from Virginia, for Miss Nannie was confident I should meet you and you see she was right."

"Indeed you may come," said Hester frankly, "we-we do not receive many visitors, but I know Julie will be glad to see you-I shall too,"

genuinely, and not as if politeness prompted this after-thought.

"Thank you. For the next few weeks I am owned body and soul," smiling, "by Jules Gremond who is stopping with me. Perhaps you know of him, Miss Dale? He's made considerable of a stir since he came out of Africa. An old chum of mine whom I think you might enjoy meeting-perhaps after awhile you will allow me to arrange it."

Hester always says she acted like a fool at this juncture and stammered out some unintelligible reply, and that he immediately departed, she thinks without any special consciousness of her idiocy-or at least she hopes so, for she frankly confesses she was in no state of mind to know.

However that may be, the door had no sooner closed after him than the dignified junior Dale, caterer, became metamorphosed into an excited young girl who flew down the hall to the room where her sister had taken refuge.

"Come back to the sitting-room where we can talk without waking Daddy, quick!" she cried, pulling Julie down the hall. "Now what do you suppose?" when they had reached the little room.

"Some one has left an extra fine order," seeing several pieces of paper clutched nervously in Hester's hand.

"Don't be so everlastingly material!" pinning the papers with a vicious stab to the back of the chair. "It has nothing to do with work, whatever-that is not exactly. Oh! do guess who has been here-and who _is_ here?"

"Hester, are you hiding some one to surprise me?" looking eagerly about.