Yet who shall say that the father's austere régime did not after all meet a need of her nature deeper than she could possibly have realized at the time; that the long, lonely hours, the study often to weariness,--though never to satiety,--the very fires of longing and of regret, were not necessary to give her mind that temper which was to make it an instrument as strong as it was keen? The result of this system was not precisely what Mr. Ward had expected. One evening (it was probably after the marriage of his eldest son to Emily Astor, when he joined perforce in the festivities of the time) he did actually take Julia to an evening party. She did not dance, but she was surrounded by eager youths all the evening, and when her father summoned her to go home, she was deep in talk with one of them. There was no disobeying the summons; as she turned to take her father's arm, Miss Julia made a little gesture of farewell, fluttering the fingers of her right hand over her shoulder, to cheer the disconsolate swain. Mr. Ward appeared unconscious of this, but a day or two later, on leaving the room where Julia was sitting, he said: "My daughter,--" and fluttered his fingers over his shoulder in precise mimicry of her gesture. Another anecdote describes an occasion singularly characteristic of both father and daughter. Julia was nineteen years old, a woman grown, feeling her womanhood in every vein. She had never been allowed to choose the persons who should be invited to the house: she had never had a _party of her own_. The different strains in her blood were singularly diverse. All through her life Saxon and Gaul kept house together as peaceably as they might, but sometimes the French blood boiled over. Calling her brothers in council, she told them that she was going to give a party; that she desired their help in making out lists, etc., but that the occasion and the responsibility were to be all her own. The brothers demurred, even Sam being somewhat appalled by the prospect; but finding her firm, they made out a list of desirable guests, of all ages. It was characteristic of her that the plan once made, the resolve taken, it became an obsession, a thing that must be done at whatever cost. She asked her father if she might invite a few friends for a certain evening: he assented. She engaged the best caterer in New York; the most fashionable musicians; she even hired a splendid cut-glass chandelier to supplement the sober lighting of the yellow drawing-room.