"Oh, years and years. Before they went abroad." "What a beautiful girl Daisy is! I am glad she is here enjoying herself. Oh, isn't it the regulation thing to speak of the hero of the feast? Of course when you heard he was coming to lecture you began to read his novels--if you had not before." "I had not read them before. There are a great many books I have not read. But I tried at 'Vanity Fair;' and I am afraid I don't like it." "I do not believe you will now. I can't imagine real young people liking them. But when one has grown older and had sorrow and suffering and experience, there are so many touches that go to one's heart. And 'Vanity Fair' is a novel without a hero. Still I always feel sorry for poor Major Dobbins. I wonder if Amelia would have liked him better if his name had been something else? Could you fall in love with such a name?" They both laughed. She raised her eyes. How exquisitely fair and sweet and dainty she was! The soft hair had shining lights; and her eyes had a twilight look that suggested a pellucid lake, with evening shades blowing over it. "A little more of something would have made him a hero, and spoiled the book." "But I don't like Amelia, nor Becky; and the Crawleys are horrid. And Thackeray seems holding up everybody and laughing at them. I like to believe in people." "I am glad there is a time when we can believe in them: it is the radiant time of youth. What did that little smile hide, and half betray? Confess!" "Are you so very old?" The charming gravity was irresistible. "Seven and twenty, and I am beginning to worship Thackeray. At seven and thirty, he will be one of my passions, I know. Now and then I come to a sentence that goes to my heart. No, do not read him yet awhile, unless it is some of the little things. There is 'Dr. Birch and his Young Friends;' and if you want to be amused you must read his continuation of 'Ivanhoe.' But then you will have neither heroines nor heroes left. And if you and Miss Daisy want to laugh beyond measure, get the 'Rose and the Ring,' that he wrote for his two little girls." "Oh," said Hanny, "are they at home, in England?" "Yes, with an aunt." "Haven't they any mother?" "They have no mother," he said gravely. Years later, the novelist was to be one of the little girl's heroes, when she knew all the bravery of his life, and why his little girls were without a mother. Joe and Daisy returned, and there was a pleasant rencontre; then Delia and Ben came up, and they had a merry chat and a promenade. "I wonder," as the musicians began tuning again, "if you are engaged for all the dances. Could I be allowed one?" He took up her card. "I have been dancing so much already; but Mrs. Jasper said I might try the Spanish dance." "Oh, then try it with me! I am not too old to dance, if I have come to adoring Thackeray. And I am to go away soon." "To go away--where?" And she glanced up with an interest that gave him a quick sense of pleasure.