Finally the evening of the dinner came. I dressed and ran out to the kitchen to see if everything was all right, for Mary was so jealous she refused to let me engage an assistant, but doggedly persisted in preparing and serving the dinner entirely by herself. To my surprise, I found the dining-room and kitchen shades pulled up to the tops of the windows, while every handsome dish Mary intended to use, and all the extra silver, were carefully placed on top of the laundry-tubs. Mary, apparently unconscious of observation, was flying around with pink cheeks, and the eyes behind the spectacles snapping with excitement. "Don't say a word, Missus," she said, sitting on her heels before the oven door. "I did it for the benefit of the rubber factory opposite. They think I don't notice, but look at them windows. Not a light in any of 'em, but all the curtains moving just a little. Do they think I don't know there's a rubber behind every damn one of 'em? Don't laugh, Missus dear, and don't look over there, whatever you do. If they want a look at the things we eat, why let 'em! They know what they cost, but I'll bet they never do more than ask the price of 'em, and then buy soup-bones and canned vegetables for their own stomachs." Mary didn't say stomachs, but much of Mary's conversation does not look well in print. "And just wait till I take in the 'peche flambee'!" she chuckled. "I'll bet they'll order out the fire department!" I said nothing, for the very excellent reason that there was really nothing to say. Mary has a way of being rather conclusive. There was no use in remonstrating or telling her not to, for she simply would not have obeyed me, so I forbore to give the order. Flora heard Mary let Artie Beg in, and ran down the corridor to meet him. She was a vision in white--her graduation dress--with her snowy shoulders rising modestly from a tulle bertha. I paused in order to let her greet him first, and, to my consternation, before I could make known my presence, I heard her say, plaintively: "Aren't you going to kiss me?" Then with a stifled groan Artie flung his arms around her, pressing her to him as if he would never let her go. Then he pushed her away from him almost roughly, and Flora laughed a low, tantalizing laugh, and crept back to him to lean her head on his shoulder, and lay her arms around his neck. I turned and fled. I fairly stampeded down the hall, running full tilt against Aubrey, and nearly folding him up. "Oh! Oh!" I gasped, dancing up and down before him excitedly. He seized both my hands. "Hold still, Faith! What's the matter? Tell me!" "They're engaged!" I wailed. "I'm too late! Cary has lost him!" "Who?" "Artie and Flora." "What makes you think so?"