Clara had been home only once during her long absence, and the meeting with the dear ones at home was a great joy. Miss Marston was introduced, and then came the embraces: first the mother’s, then the twins, who were astonished into silence by the queenly carriage and address of Clara. Dr. Forest stood talking with Miss Marston, waiting his turn, and having no eyes but for his daughter. She came presently, and Miss Marston politely moved away. “The sweetest last!” whispered Clara, as her father pressed her to his heart, answering only, “_Papa’s own girl_.” Here fat old Dinah was descried in the dining-room, wiping her grinning face with her apron. At a gesture from Clara she came to the drawing-room door, and Clara submitted to be hugged, and kissed, and “bressed,” and cried over till she cried anew herself. Miss Marston looked a little surprised at this familiarity with a negro servant, until she recalled the fact that the doctor’s family had lived many years in the South, where, there being never a possible question of equality before the late civil war, the negro was often petted even like much-loved brutes. That evening there was a grand reception in the doctor’s old-fashioned house, in honor of Clara’s return. Dan came in after all the friends had arrived, and for a time he saw no one but Clara, who advanced to meet him, offering him her hand affectionately, but instead of taking it, he grabbed the whole stately person of his sister and gave her a most bearish hugging and kissing, which embarrassed her somewhat, perhaps, because she knew Dr. Delano’s eyes were upon her. She had just left his side, and the few minutes conversation with him had given her a taste of feminine power. She had seen in every look, and word, and movement, that she impressed him deeply. After escaping from Dan’s grip, she glanced back to Dr. Delano. His eyes were averted. Was it from disgust at Dan’s rough way of meeting her, or from delicacy? At all events he seemed to have dropped her out of his thoughts, and was apparently greatly absorbed in conversation with Leila, and as he talked he occasionally twisted the long ends of a fine dark moustache. He was a rather distinguished looking man, perhaps a little too self-conscious, and old in Leila’s eyes, though in the prime of life, being not much over thirty. Before Dan would let Clara go, he said, glancing at the piano, where a quiet, graceful lady was just sitting down to play, “That washed-out virgin is your divinity, Miss Marston, I presume.” “Hush! brother. You will never speak so of her when she has once deigned to notice you. No one escapes the magic of her style, I assure you.”