“I do not know what we can do for you, lovely Jills, this afternoon,” said Flossie. “Three of our Jacks have disappeared. Mr. Haviland and Charlie Townley are in town, and Mr. Derwent has gone to the Mills village. Pussie, where’s your young man? Your acknowledged one, I mean--Jimmy De Witt?” Miss Duval blushed and smiled. “Mr. De Witt is in town, I suppose. His address is the Columbian Club.” “Yes, dear,” said Flossie, laughing. “Well, I’ve written to him. Then there’s Sidney Sewall coming to dinner,” Flossie went on, as if she were counting her chickens. Sewall was the famous editor of one of the great papers of the day. “He’s awfully clever, and improving and all that,” continued the critical Mrs. Malgam; “but he’s no good in the country. What’s become of Mr. Derwent, did you say?” “He’s passing the day at the Mills down in the town, studying the condition of the laboring classes, I suppose. He’s always doing that kind of thing.” “Much more likely he’s found a pretty face there,” said Van Kull. “Those cranks are all humbugs.” Miss Farnum looked at Van Kull while he spoke, and then looked about as if for someone to answer. Her eye fell upon Marion Lenoir. And Miss Lenoir was magnetized to speak. “Oh, how can you say so, Mr. Van Kull?” she cried. “When he talks so earnestly, and fixes his eyes upon you so, they bore you through and through. I could fall in love with a man like that, I am sure.” Miss Farnum rose and walked to the window. “Yes, and he bores me through and through,” Van Kull had retorted; but there was a general noise of rising and sliding back chairs, and no one noticed his little joke. Jokes were rare with this big fellow; a fact to which he owed much of his popularity. Arthur stood at first with Miss Farnum for a minute; but she seemed unresponsive, and he was soon swept out in the wake of Mrs. Wilton Hay. The broad terrace was bathed in the pleasant May sunlight; but over the end opposite the house was an awning slanted down to the stone balustrade. The great river lay still; far to the south, where the light blue vanished in the gleaming, was a solitary sail. The air was full of the singing of birds and the fragrance of spring blossoms; it was like a scene from Boccaccio, thought Arthur, the stone terrace and the flowers, and the distant view. Caryl Wemyss seemed to have like thoughts. “If life were only this, how simple it would be!” said he. But even this speech was too analytical for the company in its present mood. “It only rests with us to make it so,” he added, as if expecting an answer.