“How fortunate! I am taking Alice to look at my European pictures. You 'll come, won't you?” Ben was eager. There was room in the carriage for him, crowding a little, which was not unpleasant when it was Alice who was crowded against him. Lucille left them with the photographs while she went to induce the maid to make a pitcher of lemonade. When she returned Ben was talking. He and Alice were seated on a couch by the window, and Alice was holding a photograph in her hands, studying it. Ben sat turned toward her; he leaned to point out some feature of the picture, and Alice asked a question. Lucille placed the pitcher of lemonade on a stand, and went out; they were doing very well without her. She felt she had made an excellent beginning; Lanny banished, and Alice at least interested in what Ben was interested in. When she interrupted them it was to suggest the musical evenings. “It will be delightful!” Alice exclaimed. She had, for the moment, quite forgotten Lanny. The moment had, in fact, stretched to something like two hours. Ben walked home with her. XXI. A FAILURE GUST and September passed, and, in passing, seemed as placid and uneventful as any two months that ever slipped quietly away. To Alice no day and no week held any especial significance; if she had been asked to tell the most important event of the two months, she would probably have said that it was the completion of the set of twelve embroidered doilies, and the centerpiece to match, the first work she had undertaken for her new home--the home to be--since her engagement to Lanny had come about. David Dean could have thought of nothing of particular importance. Old Mrs. Grelling had died, but she had been at death's door so long her final passing through was hardly an event, and nothing else had occurred. Lanny would have said everything was running smoothly; his pitching arm kept in good condition, his work was steady at the _Gazette_ office, and Alice's letters to some extent took the place of the visits to Riverbank which the Sunday ball games made impossible. Old P. K. Welsh seemed to have forgotten his anger against the dominie, and used the “Briefs” to lambaste other Riverbankers. Herwig was still in business and Mary Ann, Mr. Fragg's housekeeper, clung to life. Rose Hinch was still nursing the old housekeeper and getting Fragg's meals. 'Thusia was no better and no worse. The two months were uneventful. They were months of which we are accustomed to say: “Everything is going the same as usual.”