Remember that Gabrielle Tescheron was enjoying herself like all the other girls that night--that New Year's eve, a little more than three years before the opening of our tale, and Jim Hosley was deep in all the fun. On the floor above the Gibson apartment, the young folks danced around the works of the clock to the music of a violin and harp, and from early evening till late--or early, as you please--they had the best kind of a time--the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters--for it was a family party. All the Gibson relatives and their friends were there, for it would not seem like New Year's to them to celebrate the coming of the year away from that romantic nest. Don't ask me to analyze the hearts of Gabrielle and Jim to the whys and wherefores, for the potencies of love are beyond the analysis even of the purists, although they give us many words of explanation which get around at last to the old formula: "They fell in love." And it was as if they had dropped from one of the round windows as they leaned far out together to catch the sound of the chimes, so sudden and so deep was the fall. Education and training in modern business methods had left Gabrielle just a simple girl, aside from all her accomplishments. Her laugh was the loudest and her zeal for a good time the strongest. She entered into the revels with zest, prompted Nellie Gibson to exhibitions of mimicry, recited, cleverly told anecdotes evolved from her own experiences, played, sang, danced and cheered for the host and hostess. It was well there were no neighbors to complain. Jim, I have been told, was completely fascinated early in the evening, and his devotions became marked by nine o'clock; by ten o'clock he was lost to all the rest of the company in beholding her. Early the following year he was happy only when dancing with her, singing so that his top notes blended with hers at short range, or helping her to hear the chimes at one of the round windows. At 3 o'clock he started for Ninety-sixth Street with Gabrielle--her mother and father were not present--and there is no record of the time he reached our flat. That was the beginning of a courtship which was carried on without the assistance of the middleman of former years, until the unexpected interference of the father-in-law threw the case into my expert hands. CHAPTER IX