In ten minutes the party was off. A young matron of five months' standing is not so materially changed from the girl she used to be that she can fail to be the gayest of company, perhaps with the more zest that the old good times seem a bit far away already and she is glad to bring them back. As for the real girl of the party, in this case it chanced to be a country lass who had been away to school and half-way through college, had been brought home by love and duty to some elderly people who needed her, and had known many hours of stifled longing for the sort of companionship with which she had grown happily familiar. Matron and maid--they were a pair for whose sakes the men who were with them gladly made slaves of themselves to give them an evening of glorious outdoor fun--and at small sacrifice. * * * * * "What a night!" exulted the doctor, striding up the long hill beside Rachel Redding breathing deep. "I'm thanking all my lucky stars that they led my path across Anthony Robeson's to-night. I've been intending to come out here ever since he was married--and might not have done it for another six months if I hadn't got started. He'll have all he wants of me now. It's the most delightful spot I've been in for many moons." "It is a dear little home," agreed Rachel warmly. "Mrs. Robeson would make the most commonplace house in the world one where everybody would want to come." "That's evident. Yet, somehow, knowing her well as a girl, I never should have suspected just those home-making qualities. You didn't know her then, I suppose? She was a girl other girls liked heartily, and men enthusiastically--one of the 'I'll be a good friend, but don't come too near' sort, you know. But she was very fond of travel and change, ready for everything in the way of sport--and, well, I certainly never saw her before in anything resembling an apron of any description. What a delightful article of attire an apron is, anyhow. I think I never appreciated it before to-night." "That's because you never saw one of Mrs. Robeson's aprons. Hers are not like other people's." "She makes hers poetic, does she?" "She certainly does--even the ones for baking and sweeping. Not ruffled or beribboned, but cut with an eye to attractiveness, and always of becoming colour." "I see. She's an artist--that was noticeable in the oysters--if she made the dish." "Of course she did." "The coffee was the best I ever drank." "Was it?" "You made that, then," remarked the doctor astutely. "I'm glad it was good," said Rachel demurely.