There were times when Hanny stood on the mysterious borderland. She used to steal up and look at the wraith of a ball-dress hanging in the third-floor closet, put away with the "choice" garments. The skirt looked so long, almost uncanny. She could see the girl who had gone to the banquet, who had danced with young men who asked "the pleasure" with the politest inclination of the head. And, oh, the lovely dances she had with Mr. Andersen! The bewitching Spanish movement floated through her brain; and the young man's voice--what a curious, lingering sweetness it had--went over her like a wave of music. Of course his German cousin would fall in love with him,--how could she help it?--and they would marry. They would go to Paris once a year or so, when business took him; they would go over to London; but their real home would be in some German town, or maybe in the castle from which the pretty grandmother had run away with her American lover. She was so glad there were real romances left in the world. It wasn't likely any would happen to her. She was not tall, nor elegant, nor handsome; and though she could sing "Bonnie Doon," "Annie Laurie," "A Rose-tree in Full Bearing," and "The Girl I Left behind me," for her father, she was not a company singer. But she really didn't mind. Her father would want her. She wasn't quite resigned to being an old maid; but then she need not worry until she was twenty-five. And when you came to that, half the relatives were fighting for Miss Cynthia Blackfan; and Mr. Erastus Morgan had invited her over to Paris to see the new Emperor, who was copying in every way his granduncle who had ruled half Europe. Then she would close the closet door and run blithely downstairs with a bit of song. That was Miss Nan Underhill up there; and in her short school-girl frock she was plain household Hanny. But they had delightful times. Doctor Joe bought a new buggy, very wide in the seat, and used to take her and Daisy out when the days were pleasant. Then Charles and Josie came over evenings, or they went to Mrs. Dean's, and talked and sang and discussed their favourite poems and stories, and thought how rich the world was growing, and wondered how their grandfathers and grandmothers had existed! The little rue in the Underhills' cup became sweetened presently with the balm of love and forbearance, that time or circumstances usually brings about when truth and good sense are at the helm. Matters had gone rather hard with Delia Whitney of late. In a certain fashion, she had come to the parting of the intellectual ways. People were as eager then as now to discover new geniuses. There were not so many writing, and it was easier to gain a hearing. She had been successful. She had been praised; her stories and poems were accepted, published, and paid for. She had been made much of by her brother's friends, and some of the literary women she had met.