"My husband has told me who you are," she said. "I didn’t expect you to be just like this.... You and your cousins are our very welcome and honored guests.... Our _guests_," she repeated almost tremulously, "and none more welcome under our roof." "It is gracious and kind of you to say so," he said, touched by the simplicity and the mild, faded face upturned. Then Mr. Rivett came forward, cautiously treading the velvet, his two burned-brown eyes fixed behind the big concave eyeglasses. "It’s wet weather," he said, shaking hands. "I hope your quarters are comfortable." "Most luxurious, thank you—with a beautiful outlook." Mrs. Rivett’s gentle voice sounded at his elbow presenting him to her daughter and son, and after that to several others who, for the moment, he made no effort to distinguish one from another except that he recognized Colonel Curmew in superb form and obtrusive pearl studs decorating a fluted shirt front. A moment later Silvette and Diana entered, slender and youthful, with all the softly flushed charm of eighteen and the winning composure of a wider experience than eighteen years can ever lend. Colonel Curmew presently outflanked Silvette, forcing her skillfully into a momentary retreat toward the recess of a window, where he blockaded her and curled his mustache with satisfaction and shot his cuffs, and prepared to drive in her outer pickets. Diana remained in quiet conversation with Mrs. Rivett, the latter shy, wistful, and ill at ease by turns; the former sweet and deferential, yet all the while composedly taking the measure of the others in the room, and of the room itself, vaguely aware in her apparently smiling preoccupation that she was winning a perplexed and timid heart. Cocktails were served—unusual ones that had a scent like the original Ricky, that is, the aromatic odor of wild blossoms. The little gray woman barely tasted hers, with that same inborn instinct, perhaps, that impelled those old-time hostesses in the days when viands and wines sometimes proved fatal. Then Edgerton relieved her of her scarcely touched glass; took Diana’s, too, which was still half full. Mrs. Rivett rose and gave him her arm, to his surprise; Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette. The name of Edgerton had counted heavily. [Illustration: "Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette."] In the dining room everything was grossly overdone except the cookery—the sort of thing most calculated to annoy and bore the very man most accustomed to it in town; profusion akin to the plethora which offends; effort impossible to disguise which stirs even in the most good-natured and generous an unwilling contempt.