Nevertheless, Catie enjoyed some happy hours, despite the chilling disappointment of finding her frocks inadequate. It would have been nicer, of course, not to discover too late that she lacked the proper gown for any especial function; nicer to have seen herself, as she saw some other girls, girls not nearly so pretty as herself, attended, not by one swain only, but surrounded by a laughing, eager dozen. Still, there were compensations, chaperons among them. Catie's expressed regrets were wholly perfunctory, whenever Mrs. Brenton confessed that she was tired and needed to lie down. For Mrs. Brenton also had come to Scott's commencement which, to her mind, was the crowning event of her own lifetime. Not only that, but somehow or other she had squeezed out the money to buy herself a new black silk gown, the first one since her marriage, more than twenty years before. Moreover, in deference to the prevailing styles, she explained to Scott on her way up from the station, she had had it made to hook up in the back above a little black lace tucker. Scott, as a matter of course, did not know a tucker from a turnip. None the less, he nodded his approval. That same evening, he confessed to himself a moderate degree of pride, when he introduced Reed Opdyke to his mother. Mrs. Brenton might lack certain social frills and furbelows; but no one could look into her honest face above the trim little black lace tucker, without realizing that she was of good, old-fashioned stock which never would degenerate. No one but a lady born could take herself so simply. Scott read Opdyke's approval in his eyes, the while he himself stood apart and talked to Catie. It was when young Opdyke's eyes passed on to rest on Catie, though, that Scott felt certain doubts, lately risen up within him, crystallize and solidify past all gainsaying. Outwardly, Opdyke's manner was respect itself; but there was an odd little twinkle in his eyes, as he gazed down on the top of Catie's flower-strewn hat, now tipped coquettishly askew as the girl turned her head sidewise and upward to speak to her tall companion. Catie was pretty, of course; but was she quite--well--right? Were her manners, like the cut and colour of her garments, a thought too pronounced and noticeable? Was her voice a little bit too loud, her manner too assured? Or was it that those other girls beside her elbow were effete and colourless? Scott struggled to repress his doubts, while he watched the gay assurance with which Catie answered to Reed Opdyke's chaff. Scott was perfectly well aware that Opdyke would not have chaffed some of those other girls upon such short acquaintance, and the surety made him restless. He took it out in wishing that Catie had not adorned her girlish neck with a gilded chain which could have restrained a bulldog, or a convict.