Just then we heard Sarah's laugh. She came into the room with Mr. Dround, a smile kindling graciously all over her face. The two women, as they kissed each other, made a picture--the dark head against the light one. Then Mrs. Dround gave Sarah a cool, motherly pat on the cheek, saying:-- "I have been offering your young man some advice, Sarah." "He doesn't need it!" Sarah answered in a flash. "Well, I don't know that he does," Mrs. Dround laughed back, kissing her again. Every one loved Sarah in the same protecting way! Soon after this Mr. Dround came up, smiling genially at the women's talk, and gave me his hand. I had not seen the chief out of business hours before. I had never thought him much of a business man in the office, and here, in his own house, with his pictures and books and curios, he was about the last person any one would believe spent his days over in Packington. It wasn't to be a simple dinner that evening. Sarah whispered that Jane had insisted on inviting a lot of people, some important people, she said, to meet her young man. And presently the guests arrived,--Lardner and Steele and Jefferson with their wives, and a number of others. About the only ones I knew were big John and his very fat wife. They seemed to be as much out of the crowd as I felt I was, with all my coolness. But Sarah was perfectly at her ease. I admired her all afresh when I saw how easily and gayly she took the pretty things those men said to her. I was more at my ease in the smoking room after dinner, where I had to tell the story about the theft of the purse in Steele's store. The shrewd old merchant laughed heartily. [Illustration: "_I have been offering your young man some advice, Sarah._"] "I trust, Mr. Harrington," he drawled, "that now you are going to marry you will lose _your_ purse there in place of taking one." They paid me considerable attention all around, and it gave me a pleasant feeling--all of which, I knew, was due to Sarah. I was nothing but a newcomer among them, but she was the daughter of an old friend. And she had a wonderful way of her own of coming close to people. I remember that we went later to the opera, which was being given in that big barn of an exposition building on the lake front where I had had my first experience of Chicago hospitality. We were in a box, and between the acts people came in to call. Sarah introduced me to some of them, and she held a reception then and there while Mrs. Dround looked on and smiled.