As he was looking another way, she could not see his face until, from something Herbert said to him, he turned quickly and she saw a pale, refined face, with perfectly regular features and a pair of large, dark eyes, which met hers, while his hat was lifted for a moment, as she bowed to Herbert, who had removed his cap and was waving it towards her. “I believe he is a gentleman, but proud, of course. I wonder if Herbert will tell him what people say of my father,” she thought, and grew hot and dizzy as she recalled the insult. “The Lansings are here,” she said to her father when he came home to lunch. “The Lansings? Who are they?” he answered abstractedly. “Why, the grand relations of Judge White,” Louie replied; “his sister, Mrs. Lansing, and her son Fred. They live in Washington now, but they did live in Richmond before the war, and there’s a Miss Blanche Percy with them, a great heiress and Mr. Lansing’s ward before he died. She had a brother who was killed, or something, and I guess that is why her face is so sad. I saw her just a minute as she went by,” Louie added, too intent upon her strawberries and cream to notice the change in her father as she talked, from one of indifference to absorbing interest. The Lansings made no impression upon him, but when Blanche Percy was mentioned, he became all attention, and had Louie been observing him, she would have seen a pallor about his lips as he listened. “Blanche Percy—from where?” he asked, and Louie replied, “From Washington now—from Richmond formerly, where I told you the Lansings lived. They are Southerners, and big swells, Herbert says.” To this her father made no comment, but asked, “What was it about the brother? What did you say his name was?” “I didn’t say. I don’t know—Percy, most likely,” Louie replied. “Herbert told me she had a twin brother who killed himself, or was killed—the latter probably; those Southerners are so hot-headed.” As Mr. Grey made no reply, Louie branched off upon the big party the Whites were to have in honor of their guests, and to which no one was to be invited from the town except those to whom Mrs. White was indebted, and those who called upon Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy. “You’ll call, mother, won’t you? I want you and father to attend the party, and tell me about it,” she said. There was a sudden movement as of dissent from Mr. Grey, but before he could speak his wife replied: “I don’t think I shall trouble myself. I was here five years before Mrs. White called upon me, and then she came when I am certain she knew I was out. When I returned it, she was engaged, and she has never been near me since. I shall not call on her or the Lansings.” “Of course not,” Mr. Grey rejoined, with an asperity of manner unusual with him.