"You've got an elegant party, Madam!" Mr. Mallow glowed with civic and neighborly pride. "I don't know as any place but Cyrus could show such a conjugation of pretty gals and handsome ladies." "A galaxy!" exclaimed Mr. Jordano. "A golden galaxy! 'They walk in beauty like the night-tite-tite--' the second line escapes me! the poet Byron! Miss Kitty, boona sarah, as we say in beautiful Italy. Bella Italia, Miss Kitty! Bella Kitterina, also, if an old friend may take the liberty. Very eleganto, I must say." "_Grazie tante_, Signor Jordano!" Kitty smiled and dimpled, and sent Mr. Jordano straight to the seventh heaven. He did not follow the words, but that did not matter; he was hearing Italian spoken by lovely lips, and his gentle spirit soared ecstatic. He stepped aside to make room for the Chanter girls who swept in, like a white muslin billow, and after breaking in curtseys to Madam Flynt, surged round Kitty and me in shouting chorus. Mr. and Mrs. Chanter came next, beaming good will on all; the three boys brought up the rear. Bobby and Rodney had come over from their college town on purpose; Aristides was in the High School; all three were in love with Kitty, in varying degrees of intensity, but Bobby's prior claim was silently conceded by the other two. He was the eldest; he had the Dress Suit (a gift from a distant uncle whose inches could no longer be clipped within it); he was captain of the college football team. He had been in love with Kitty as long as he could remember. Of course, while Tom was "round," Bobby never had any hope, not even when his enchantress used to call him "Pretty Bobby Shafto," and sing a little song, derisive but not unfriendly, about his being fat and fair, which he was, and about his combing down his yellow hair, which he might with advantage have done oftener, and about his going to sea, silver buckles at his knee, which was preposterous. When Kitty, perched on top of the fence, would trill in her silver voice, "He'll come back and marry me, Pretty Bobby Shafto!" the boy's honest heart thumped at his ribs, and his cheeks grew redder, if that were possible. She was Tommy's girl; he was perfectly loyal to Tommy; still--but now that Tom was gone and no one ever heard a word from him, Bobby saw no reason why his own modest hopes might not soar; so soar they did. Rodney and Aristides (the latter a chronic sufferer from his name, which he loathed equally in its entirety and in its customary abbreviation of "Sty") after making their bows, waited cheerfully for Bobby to ask Kitty for the first dance, which he promptly did. Rodney was just sidling up to claim the second when Wilson Wibird, leaning over Kitty from behind, laid a hand on the dance-card which hung from her fan. "The rest are mine, Katrine!" he murmured.