She cast a somewhat anxious eye at the sisters as they marched decorously into the room on the heels of the maid’s announcement, their faces both ornamented with the same shy smile. Although she had known them most of her life and Dora was her closest friend, Cynthia never felt she knew quite where she was with them. In their rear walked Mr. Doyle, and behind him George Howard. Where Cynthia cast one anxious eye, George cast two. In spite of his elder years George knew even less where he was with his sisters than Cynthia did. “Hallo, Lawks!” smiled their hostess. “Hallo, Dawks!” To be admitted to the circle of those permitted to address them by these pseudonyms, which George had invented with simple pride at the age of eight, was the highest privilege the two had to bestow. The number so allowed was, for each sister, twelve, and no one fresh could be received within the magic circle until a suitable vacancy occurred. Cynthia did not know Laura nearly so well as her sister (the two had, very wisely, been despatched to different schools), but was permitted the honour in view of her position as Dora’s Best Friend. Laura smiled her greeting, and Dora motioned Mr. Doyle forward. “This is my appendage, Cynthia,” she remarked frankly. “He isn’t much to look at perhaps,” Laura amplified, “but his heart’s in the right place; at least Dora says it is, we haven’t had him vetted yet. His name’s Henry Aloysius Frederick Doyle, but never mind about that; he answers much better to the name of Pat. He’s Irish.” Mr. Doyle, a slightly-built, clean-shaven young man with black hair, turned in the act of bowing to Cynthia. “I’m not!” he said indignantly. “Yes, you are,” his future sister-in-law contradicted him. “How could you help being, with a name like Pat Doyle?” “But my name isn’t Pat Doyle. It’s Henry Doyle. Pat’s a nickname, goodness knows why. I’ve told you a hundred——” “Stop arguing and shake hands with the lady,” the younger Miss Howard interrupted. “Goodness knows your manners are bad enough at the best of times without making them worse. And we did want you to shine a little to-night. That’s why I told you not to speak with your mouth full, like you usually do, and not to wave your fork in the air when you argue. Of course you’re Irish!” With a somewhat heightened colour, which told Cynthia that these candid remarks were not without their substratum of truth, Mr. Doyle completed his greeting of his hostess. George, trying hard to look as if he had heard nothing, took Cynthia’s slim hand in his huge paw and told her, with remarkable earnestness, that it had been a topping day; he also expressed his hopes that it would be as topping a day to-morrow. One gathered that George was being what he considered tactful. Cynthia embarked upon her share of the unnatural conversation that takes place between intimate friends before a rather formal dinner.