"Then I shall have to send her in with Geoffrey Crewe--or Brant Hille." "Will the men stay behind when the ladies come out?" "Yes, of course." "Then I prefer the porch," persisted Peter, comfortably; and Olive acknowledged that he had chosen the wiser part. So on Tuesday evening, when Shirley, in the midst of a rainbow-tinted group of young women, floated airily out from the brightly lighted and oppressively warm dining-room to the cool, softly lighted recesses of the great porch, it was with a sense of refreshing change that she went straight to the big chair by a pillar, where Peter sat waiting for her. As she dropped into a low seat by his side, she thought she had never seen him show to greater advantage, although he could not rise to do her honour, and could only say, with a straight, upward glance, "This is kind of you. I ’ve been thinking for an hour how you ’d look when you came out that door." "Do I look it?" "My imagination fell a long way short. It’s months since I ’ve seen you in this sort of thing." He indicated her gauzy evening frock of pale rose-colour. A wreath of tiny rosebuds crowned her hair; a little silver basket of roses, ribbon-tied, lay in her lap, a dinner favour like those the others carried, but suiting her attire with special charm. "Do you remember our first party?" asked Shirley, smiling at him. "I certainly do," Peter assured her. "You had on a white dress and pink ribbons--pink slippers, too. You came up and slid your hand into mine, because you saw I was feeling lonely. You were jolly kind to me that night, and I never forgot it. I suppose I was a pitiful object, standing there looking on, all by myself." "You did n’t look pitiful at all, but rather superior, if I remember, like a big St. Bernard, condescending to watch the antics of a lot of frolicsome terriers." Peter threw back his head and laughed low, with a gleam of white teeth. Whatever there might have been that was odd about Peter’s appearance at that first party, there could be no criticism of his looks to-night. Olive, taking critical note of Shirley’s companion, owned that she should feel no hesitation in presenting him to Mr. Arthur Crewe and his brother as a connection of the family. When that moment arrived, the American and the Englishmen appeared to take a frank liking to one another on the spot, for the Crewes both sat down to talk, and Peter, sitting up, met them half-way in a cordial effort to become acquainted in the brief time allotted them. "Will you tell me what you think of him?" It was Olive, slipping for a moment toward the end of the evening into the chair by Peter’s, he being temporarily left to himself. "I think he’s a man," said Peter, heartily, and to the point. "There ’s nothing better I could say than that, is there?" "I suppose not, being one yourself. A woman would think it necessary to add a number of complimentary things about his appearance and his manner and all that."