“He was at his most brilliant--really wonderful--and I liked him better than I've ever liked him before. He seemed to have a genuine pleasure in Peter's happiness, and I believe he's as fond of the boy as he's able to be of any one. A copy of 'The Stone House' was given to each of us (I haven't had time to look at mine yet) and I suppose the combination of the baby and the book moved us all. Besides, Clare and Peter both looked so absurdly young. Such children to have had so many adventures already. You can imagine how riotous we got when I tell you that dessert found Mrs. Rossiter with a paper cap on her head and Janet Gale was singing some Cornish song or other to the delight of the company. Miss Monogue and I were the quietest. I should think that she's one of the best, and I saw her look at Peter once or twice in a way that showed how strongly she felt about him. “Well, old girl, I'm bothered if I can explain the kind of anxiety that came over me after a time. You'll think me a regular professional croaker but really I suppose, at bottom, it was some sort of feeling that the whole thing, this shouting and cheering and thumping the table--was premature. And then I suppose it was partly my knowledge of Peter. It wasn't like him to behave in this sort of way. He wasn't himself--excited, agitated by something altogether foreign to him. I could have thought that he was drunk, if I hadn't known that he hadn't touched any liquor whatever. But a man of Peter's temperament pays for this sort of thing--it isn't the sort of way he's meant to take life. “Whatever the reason may have been I know that I felt suddenly outside the whole business and most awfully depressed. I think Miss Monogue felt exactly the same. By the time the wine was on the table all I wanted was to get right away. It was almost as though I had been looking on at something that I was ashamed to see. There was a kind of deliberate determination about their happiness and Clare's little body with her hair on the verge, as it seemed, of a positive downfall, had something quite pitiful in its deliberate rejoicing; such a child, my dear--I never realised how young until last night. Such a child and needing some one so much older and wiser than Peter to manage it all. “Well, there I was hating it when the final moment came. Cards got up and in one of the wittiest little speeches you ever heard in your life, proposed Peter's health, alluded to 'Reuben Hallard,' then Clare, then the Son and Heir, a kind of back fling at old Dawson's, and then last of all, an apostrophe to 'The Stone House' all glory and honour, &c.:--well, it was most neatly done and we all sat back, silent, for Peter's reply.