It was very late in the season when the delayed return of the pair was announced, with numerous adjectives, in the society columns; but Mr. Allmand's impatience to expose his golden fleece to the expectant Jasons would brook no delay. Blanche was allowed scarcely time to unpack her many trunks; to exhibit her goodly share of the _chefs d'oeuvres_ of Pengat and Worth to the admiring elect; and to receive gushing embraces, only measured by their envy, when the _debut_ ball was announced for Christmas-eve. His best Christmas gift had come to the doting father; and what more fitting season to show his joy and pride in it, and to have their little world share both? When Blanche, backed by Miss Rose Wood, had hinted that it was rather an unusual occasion, he had promptly settled that by declaring that she was a peculiarly unusual sort of girl. So the invitations went forth; the Allmand mansion was first turned inside out, and then illuminated, and flower-hidden for the _debut_ ball. That it would be _the_ affair of the season none doubted. Already, many a paternal pocket had twinged responsive to extra appeals from marketable daughters; and as to beaux, they had responded _nem. con._, when bidden to the event promising so much in present feast, and which might possibly so tend to prevent future famine. For already the clubs had discounted the chances of one favorite or another for winning the marital prize of the year. Foremost among those who had hastened to welcome Blanche back to her new home was Miss Rose Wood. She had the mysterious knack of "coming out" gracefully with every fresh set; of perfectly adapting herself to its fads, and especially to its beaux. Set might come and set might go, but she came out forever; and some nameless tact implied to every _debutante_, what Micawber forced upon Copperfield with the brutality of words, that she was the "friend of her youth." So, already, Miss Wood was prime favorite and prime minister at the home-court of the confiding Blanche, who, spite of brave heart and strong will of her own, fluttered not unnaturally in the unwonted buzz and glare of her new life. But most particularly had Rose Wood warned her against the flirts and "unsafe men" of their set; including, of course, Vanderbilt Morris and her present partner of the ball in the ranks of both. That partner, Andrew Browne, was avowedly the best _parti_ of the entire set. Handsome, fun-loving, and well-cultivated, he was that _rara avis_ among society beaux, a thorough gentlemen by instinct; but he was lazily given to self-indulgence, and had the prime weakness of being utterly incapable of saying "no," to man or woman. The intimate friend and room-mate of Van Morris for many years, Browne had never lost a sort of reverence for the superior force and decision of the other's character; and, though but a few years his junior, in all serious social matters he literally sat at his feet.