As to the talk he had heard about Miss Dinon, he resented it, and would not think of it as in the least degree probable. To be sure, he would not believe her thirty-six, though if she were he heartily honored her that she had lived so well as to look far younger than her years. Still, he was not to be bought, even by a handsome and intelligent woman. It was not uncomplimentary, though, that any one should have thought him so attractive to Miss Dinon,--a woman whom he was sure must have had plenty of offers in her day. But should he ever chance to marry rich, what a sweet and perpetual revenge it would be upon people who had looked, and probably talked, as if he were an awkward country youth! Then came back to him suddenly, in all their blackness, his moody thoughts over the obdurate facts in the case. Prolong his butterfly day as long as his money would allow, he must soon return to his normal condition of a country grub: he must return to the farm, to his well-worn clothes of antique cut and neighborly patches, to the care of horses, cows, pigs, and chickens, take “pot-luck” in the family kitchen instead of carefully selecting his meals from long bills of fare. Instead of attending receptions in handsome houses, he must seek society in church sociables and the hilarious yet very homely parties given by neighboring farmers, and an occasional affair, not much more formal, in the village. It was awful, but it seemed inevitable, no matter how he tortured his brain in trying to devise an alternative. If he had a little money he might speculate in stocks; there, at least, he might benefit by his acquaintance with Marge; but all the money he had would not more than maintain him in New York a fortnight longer, and he had not the heart to ask his father for more. His father!--what could that good, much-abused man be already thinking of him, that no word from the traveller had yet reached Hayn Farm? He would write that very night--or morning, late though it was; and he felt very virtuous as he resolved that none of the discontent that filled him should get into his letter. It was nearly sunrise when he went to bed. From his window, eight floors from the ground, he could see across the ugly house-tops a rosy flush in the east, and some little clouds were glowing with gold under the blue canopy. Rose, blue, gold,--Lucia’s cheeks, her eyes, her hair; he would think only of them, for they were his delight; his misery could wait: it would have its control of him soon enough. * * * * * “Margie, Margie, wake up!” whispered Lucia to her slumbering sister, on returning from the Dinon party. “Oh, dear!” drawled the sleeper; “is it breakfast-time so soon?” “No, you little goose; but you want to hear all about the party, don’t you?”