Mrs. Bowen stood in front of the fire in a brown silk of subdued splendour, and with her hands and fan and handkerchief tastefully composed before her. At sight of Colville she gave a slight start, which would have betrayed to him, if he had been another woman, that she had not really believed he would come, and came forward with a rustle and murmur of pleasure to meet him; he had politely made a rush upon her, so as to spare her this exertion, and he was tempted to a long-forgotten foppishness of attitude as he stood talking with her during the brief interval before she introduced him to any of the company. She had been honest with him; there were not more than twenty-five or thirty people there; but if he had overdone it in dressing for so small an affair, he was not alone, and he was not sorry. He was sensible of a better personal effect than the men in frock-coats and cut-aways were making, and he perceived with self-satisfaction that his evening dress was of better style than that of the others who wore it; at least no one else carried a crush hat.-- At forty-one a man is still very much of a boy, and Colville was obscurely willing that Mrs. Bowen, whose life since they last met at an evening party had been passed chiefly at New York and Washington, should see that he was a man of the world in spite of Des Vaches. Before she had decided which of the company she should first present him to, her daughter came up to his elbow with a cup of tea and some bread and butter on a tray, and gave him good-evening with charming correctness of manner. "Really," he said, turning about to take the cup, "I thought it was you, Mrs. Bowen, who had got round to my side with a sash on. How do you and Miss Effie justify yourselves in looking so bewitchingly alike?" "You notice it, then?" Mrs. Bowen seemed delighted. "I did every moment you were together to-day. You don't mind my having been so personal in my observations?" "Oh, not at all," said Mrs. Bowen, and Colville laughed. "It must be true," he said, "what a French lady said to me at the _table-d'hote_ dinner to-night: 'the Amerhicans always strhike the note of perhsonality.'" He neatly imitated the French lady's guttural accent. "I suppose we do," mused Mis. Bowen, "and that we don't mind it in each other. I wish _you_ would say which I shall introduce you to," she said, letting her glance stray invisibly over her company, where all the people seemed comfortably talking. "Oh, there's no hurry; put it off till to-morrow," said Colville. "Oh no; that won't do," said Mrs. Bowen, like a woman who has public duties to perform, and is resolute to sacrifice her private pleasure to them. But she postponed them a moment longer. "I hope you got home before the rain," she said. "Yes," returned Colville. "That is, I don't mind a little sprinkling. Who is the Junonian young person at the end of the room?" "Ah," said Mrs. Bowen, "you can't be introduced to _her_ first. But _isn't_ she lovely?"