"You're a great man, aren't you?" she asked suddenly, turning away from the table. "Why, no. What in the world put that into your head?" "Well, the General told Mr. Cottrel you were a genius, and Mr. Cottrel said you were the first genius he had ever heard of who measured six feet two in his stockings." "Of course I'm not a genius. They were joking." "You're rich anyway, and that's just as good." I was about to make some sharp rejoinder, irritated by her insistence on the distinction of wealth, when the sound of Sally's step fell on my ears, and a moment later she came down the brilliantly lighted staircase, her long black lace train rippling behind her. As she moved among the lamps and azaleas, I thought I had never seen her more radiant--not even on the night of her first party when she wore the white rose in her wreath of plaits. Her hair was arranged to-night in the same simple fashion, her mouth was as vivid, her grey eyes held the same mingling of light with darkness. But there was a deeper serenity in her face, brought there by the untroubled happiness of her marriage, and her figure had grown fuller and nobler, as if it had moulded itself to the larger and finer purposes of life. "The house is charming, Jessy is lovely, and you, Ben, are magnificent," she said, her eyebrows arching merrily as she slipped her hand in my arm. "And it's a good dinner, too," she went on; "the terrapin is perfect. I sent into the country for the game, and the man from Washington came down with the decorations and the ices. Best of all, I made the salad myself, so be sure to eat it. We'll begin to be gay now, shan't we? Are you sure we have money enough for a ball?" "We've money enough for anything that you want, Sally." "Then I'll spend it--but oh! Ben, promise me you won't mention stocks to-night until the women have left the table." "I'll promise you, and keep it, too. I don't believe I ever introduced a subject in my life to any woman but you." "I'm glad, at least, there's one subject you didn't introduce to any other." Then the door-bell rang, and we hurried into the drawing-room in time to receive Governor Blenner and the General, who arrived together. "I almost got a fall on your pavement, Ben," said the General, "it's beginning to sleet. You'd better have some sawdust down." It took me a few minutes to order the sawdust, and when I returned, the other guests were already in the room, and Sally was waiting to go in to dinner on the arm of Governor Blenner, a slim, nervous-looking man, with a long iron-grey mustache. I took in Mrs. Tyler, a handsome widow, with a young face and snow-white hair, and we were no sooner seated than she began to tell me a story she had heard about me that morning. "Carry James told me she gave her little boy a penny and asked him what he meant to do with it. 'Ath Mithter Starr to thurn it into, a quarther,' he replied." "Oh, he thinks that easy now, but he'll find out differently some day," I returned.