At dinner it was chiefly, I think, of flowers that we talked—such a nice, safe subject. It seems that the Governor is actually interested in gardening. _How_ amazed the staff would be if it were hinted that Still Waters took the vaguest gleam of interest in anything outside making money for the firm! After dinner, when he remained behind in the dining-room to smoke, his mother slipped one white hand into Blanche’s arm, the other into mine; and the gesture, I know, was meant to imply that she had “another daughter now.” We stepped together across the black-and-white-tiled hall into the drawing-room, with its ordered chaos of pretty, old-fashioned furniture and dainty new things, and the unmistakable atmosphere of a homey room that is lived in. Mrs. Waters drew me down beside her on the wide, shallow sofa, and I saw her eyes dwelling on every line of my face, as if she were trying to learn fresh knowledge of her son from the girl who presumably was permitted to see him as his own mother never sees a man. That brought a lump into my throat. I bent my head over my work—a bit of Richelieu embroidery with which I had taken care to provide myself. I had remembered some axioms of Miss Robinson at the office: “_Never you be without a hit of fancy-work, girls, when you wish to impress. Men seem to think a girl must be so sweet and womanly who can sit for hours wagging a crochet-hook and a bit of thread at them. As for the future mother-in-law, she always imagines a girl is more likely to turn out domesticated if she cannot keep her hands still for ten minutes. Besides, a bit of drawn-thread work, or whatever it is, gives you something to look at when you don’t exactly know what to say next._” The last reason was mine. I certainly did not know what to say when the Governor’s mother remarked softly: “You know, Nancy, you are just what I hoped you would be.” “Am I?” I felt an unutterable little _cad_. Yes, Mr. William Waters! And who forced me into the position of feeling like this?