It was an unpleasant breakfast for Helen, and she retired from the table as soon as she could. She felt that this attitude of the Starkweathers toward her was really more unhappy than their former treatment. For she somehow suspected that this overpowering kindness was founded upon a sudden discovery that she was a rich girl instead of an object of charity. How well-founded this suspicion was she learned when she and Jess met. Hortense brought her up two very elaborate frocks that forenoon, one for her to wear when she poured tea in Mary Boyle's rooms, and the other for her to put on for the Stones' dinner party. "They will just about fit you. I'm a mite taller, but that won't matter," said the languid Hortense. "And really, Helen, I am just as sorry as I can be for the mean way you have been treated while you have been here. You have been so good-natured, too, in helping a chap. Hope you won't hold it against me--and _do_ wear the dresses, dear." "I will put on this one for the afternoon," said Helen, smiling. "But I do not need the evening dress. I never wore one quite--quite like that, you see," as she noted the straps over the shoulders and the low corsage. "But I thank you just the same." Later Belle said to her airily: "Dear Cousin Helen! I have spoken to Gustaf about taking you to the Stones' in the limousine to-night. And he will call for you at any hour you say." "I cannot avail myself of that privilege, Belle," responded Helen, quietly. "Jess will send for me at half-past six. She has already arranged to do so. Thank you." There was so much going on above stairs that day that Helen was able to escape most of the oppressive attentions of her cousins. Great baskets of flowers were sent in by some of the young people who remembered and loved Mary Boyle, and Helen helped to arrange them in the little old lady's rooms. Tea things for a score of people came in, too. And cookies and cakes from the caterer's. At three o'clock, or a little after, the callers began to arrive. Belle, and Hortense, and Flossie received them in the reception hall, had them remove their cloaks below stairs, and otherwise tried to make it appear that the function was really of their own planning. But nobody invited either of the Starkweather girls upstairs to Mary Boyle's rooms. Perhaps it was an oversight. But it certainly _did_ look as though they had been forgotten. But the party on the attic floor was certainly a success. How pretty the little old lady looked, sitting in state with all the young and blooming faces about her! Here were growing up into womanhood and manhood (for some of the boys had not been ashamed to come) the children whom she had tended and played with and sung to. And she sung to them again--verses of forgotten songs, lullabies she had crooned over some of their cradles when they were ill, little broken chants that had sent many of them, many times, to sleep.