“Yes, and so can Miss Lady! Isn't it funny? She says it 's the one the darkeys dance at the picnics up at Thornwood! Come on, Miss Lady; let 's show them!” “Constance, Constance!” remonstrated the Doctor gently, as the girl seized Miss Lady's hands and tried to draw her to her feet. “You see, Donald, the children forget that Mrs. Queerington is anything but a play-fellow, and sometimes--” he rose and laid a hand on her shoulder, “sometimes she forgets, too.” Donald pushed back his chair abruptly. “I think I'll come to the party, Connie, after all. I'll run up to Decker's room at the hotel and change my togs. You will save me a waltz or two?” “All of them, if you like! It's going to be the jolliest dance of the season, everybody says so. Change your mind, Miss Lady, and come! I don't see how you can hesitate when you remember the time you had at the Sequins'! Gerald is coming for me; we can all go down together.” Miss Lady needed only the spark of Connie's enthusiasm to start all the forbidden fires in her. Her eyes flew to the Doctor's face. He smiled as he caught her eager look. “Go with them, my dear, if you like. It is quite a natural instinct, I believe, to celebrate the first night of the New Year.” “But you, will you take me? Just this once, Doctor?” “No, no. My party days are over. Donald here will take my place, will you not, Donald?” But Miss Lady gave him no chance to answer. That mad insistent clamor within her for joy, for life, for love, could not be trusted for a moment. She was afraid of herself! “I'll stay home,” she said, with a brave attempt at gaiety, conscious of Donald's critical eyes upon her. “We will have a pinochle tournament, and Noah and I will beat the home team on its own ground. Won't we, Noah?” But Noah did not hear her; he was absorbed in watching Connie who stood on tiptoe, pinning a flower in Don Morley's buttonhole. CHAPTER XX For the next month little else was talked about but Donald Morley's trial. The truth of the matter sustained a compound fracture every time the subject was discussed. In some quarters it was confidently asserted that the fugitive from justice had been captured the moment he landed in America, and was allowed his liberty only under a heavy bond. Others contended that a guilty conscience had driven him to confession. Meanwhile his friends were either exasperated at his folly in reviving the old scandal, or quixotically enthusiastic over his demand for justice. Mrs. Sequin bitterly opposed his action until she found that the Bartrums, Dr. Queerington, and other influential friends upheld him, then she decided to suspend her judgment until the trial was over. Of course if he was going to be a hero, she wanted to be his loving sister, but if he was going to be convicted, she would have nothing more to do with him. He had gone directly against her advice in coming home, and she observed with ominous certainty that “he would see.”