By great efforts the mother and daughters choked down their wrath and mortification, bathed their swollen eyes, put on fresh lily white and carmine, and joined their guests. What should they have for an excuse? O, a sick headache--sudden and distressful--he was subject to them; poor Philip! Later in the evening, Estelle St. Leger led Della Lisle up to her own room. They were passing through the hall. Opposite her door, Estelle stooped to lace her slipper, for which purpose she had left the drawing-room. "So he has no headache," said Della, "and absents himself only from aversion to society?" "That is all," replied Estelle, pettishly. "Isn't he stupid?" "No, I just begin to think right well of him. I have no respect for some of those effeminate butterflies down stairs, who say only silly nothings, because, forsooth, they think we can appreciate nothing better, or because they have nothing better to offer." "But I thought you were quite captivated with Edward Damon? You two, for the last half hour, have seemed to be unconscious that there was aught else in the world save that one corner that held you." "Edward Damon is an exception. He is intelligent, unaffected, and agreeable. He is not all simper and softness. He can talk with one without being lost in his own self-conceit, fancying you deep in admiration of his own charming self. Yes, I really like Edward Damon." The shoe was laced, and the girls passed on, but the voice of Della Lisle seemed still to linger upon the ears of Philip. His own door opened upon the hall very near to the waiting girls; he had heard every word. First, the voice of Della was pleasant and gentle; it powerfully attracted him; second, her words were not those of an ordinary city lady. "A sensible girl, that--Della, Estelle called her; a pretty name. And Edward Damon is there, it seems, the best fellow I ever knew. Who knows? Maybe a shoe-string influences my fate. At all events, I am influenced in a way I may not resist." And Philip St. Leger, with extraordinary inconsistency, soon appeared among his mother's guests. There was but one drawback to the joy and gratification of that mother and the three sisters--his necktie was not of the very latest style. CHAPTER VI. MISSIONARY LIFE. In falling in love with Della Lisle at first sight, Philip pleased himself only and his sister Estelle; that is, if we leave Della out. His mother had the tall, graceful daughter of a millionaire selected for him; Leonora, the elder sister, had her pet friend Miss De Rosier, secretly engaged and under promise; Juliet, the younger, wished him never to fall in love, never to marry, but to remain forever her dear, only, adorable brother Philip, for whom she would give up all the world and live a maiden to the end of her life.