It was a spring evening and the dining-room windows were open to the two lilac bushes which Alyse’s mother had nursed for years in the narrow, sooty back yard. The room was filled with an unreal light, as if the air was full of golden pollen dust. And something else, invisible and palpitant, was in the air of the homely room, something not to be seen but only sensed. Some intense preoccupation a sympathetic eye could have noted in three of the faces around the table. “Well, well, we’re all dressed up to-night,” said George Todd, unfolding his napkin. “Look at Miggsy, Allie. Won’t she knock somebody’s eye out to-night?” Alyse looked at her young sister, Mildred, aged sixteen. Mildred blushed, fidgeted, pouted entreatingly at her father. She was a thin little beauty, with a soft cloud of corn-silk hair about her face. In her red mouth desire and wistfulness mingled. To-night her eyes were stretched and brilliant. She twitched at the table silver and appeared to have no appetite. “Eat your spinach, dearie.” Her mother’s eyes brooded over her tenderly. “I thought you liked it creamed.” “I do, but---- Goodness, mother, is that clock right? I must fly!” “But there’s chocolate pudding for dessert, dear.” “Now, Miggs, finish your dinner. Why be so fidgety?” Mildred looked in desperation from her father to her mother. “But I don’t want any dinner, please! I--I have to be there early. Please let me go now, Mother.” She danced from one foot to the other, the secret excitement in her eyes threatening to change to anger. She had spent most of the time since she came home from school that afternoon in front of her mirror, and she was now exquisitely polished, powdered, and perfumed. From under the fluff of hair over each ear an earring of blue to match her eyes dangled. Alyse disapproved of the earrings and of the general effect of Milly to-night. She made a mental note to speak to her mother about letting the child go out so many evenings. But beyond the earrings and the general overstrung and overdressed effect she did not penetrate. She made no attempt to interpret the secret excitement in her young sister’s eyes. The affairs of a girl of sixteen were too inane and foolish to be taken seriously.