“No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help her to know a few nice young people who are good-natured and well-mannered. She is not the ordinary old lady’s companion and if she were not so strict with herself and with me, I confess I should behave towards her very much as I should behave to Kathryn if you could spare her to live with me. She is a heart-warming young thing. Because I am known to have one of my eccentric fancies for her and because after all her father _was_ well connected, her present position will not be the obstacle. She is not the first modern girl who has chosen to support herself.” “But isn’t she much too pretty?” “Much. But she doesn’t flaunt it.” “But heart-warming—and too pretty! Dearest mamma!” Lady Lothwell laughed again. “She can do no harm to Kathryn, but I own that if George were not at present quite madly in love with a darling being at least fifteen years older than himself I should pause to reflect. Mrs. Stacy will keep him steady—Mrs. Alan Stacy, you know—the one with the magnificent henna hair, and the eyes that droop. No boy of twenty-two can resist her. They call her adorers ‘The Infant School’.” “A small dinner and a small dance—and George and Kathryn may be the beginning of an interesting experiment. It would be pretty and kind of you to drop in during the course of the evening.” “Are you hoping to—perhaps—make a marriage for her?” Lady Lothwell asked the question a shade disturbedly. “You are so amazing, mamma darling, that I know you will do it, if you believe in it. You seem to be able to cause the things you really want, to evolve from the universe.” “She is the kind of girl whose place in the universe is in the home of some young man whose own place in the universe is in the heart and soul and life of her kind of girl. They ought to carry out the will of God by falling passionately in love with each other. They ought to marry each other and have a large number of children as beautiful and rapturously happy as themselves. They would assist in the evolution of the race.” “Oh! Mamma! how delightful you always are! For a really brilliant woman you are the most adorable dreamer in the world.” “Dreams are the only things which are true. The rest are nothing but visions.” “Angel!” her daughter laughed a little adoringly as she kissed her. “I will do whatever you want me to do. I always did, didn’t I? It’s your way of making one see what you see when you are talking that does it.” It was understood before they parted that Kathryn and George would be present at the small dinner and the small dance, and that a few other agreeable young persons might be trusted to join them, and that Lady Lothwell and perhaps her husband would drop in.