A ring at the door-bell was instantly followed by the bursting open of the door and the impetuous onslaught of a girl, a tall, handsome, brown-eyed blonde about Lydia's age, who, wasting no time in greetings to the older women, flung herself on Lydia's neck with a wild outcry of jubilation. "My dear! Isn't it dandy! Perfectly _dandy_! Paul met me at the train last night and when he told me I nearly swooned for joy! Of all the tickled sisters-in-law! I wanted to come right over here last night, but Paul said it was a secret, and wouldn't let me." A momentary failure of lung-power forced her to a pause in which she perceived Lydia's attire. She recoiled with a dramatic rush. "Oh, you've got one of them _on_! Lydia, how insanely swell you do look! Why, Mrs. Emery"--she turned to Lydia's mother with a light-hearted unconsciousness that she had not addressed her before--"she doesn't look _real_, does she!" There was an instant's pause as the three women gazed ecstatically at Lydia, who had again turned her back and was leaning her forehead against the window. Then the girl sprang at her again. "Well, my goodness, Lydia! I just love you to pieces, of course, but if we were of the same complexion I should certainly put poison in your candy. As it is, me so blonde and you so dark--I tell you what--what we won't do this winter--" She ran up to her again, putting her arms around her neck from behind and whispering in her ear. Miss Burgess turned to her hostess with her sweet, motherly smile. "Aren't girls the _dearest_ things?" she whispered. "I love to see them so young, and full of their own little affairs. I think it's dreadful nowadays how so many of them are allowed to get serious-minded." Madeleine was saying to Lydia, "You sly little thing--to land Paul before the season even began! Where are you going to get your lingerie? Oh, _isn't_ it fun? If I go abroad I'll smuggle it back for you. You haven't got your ring yet, I don't suppose? Make him make it a ruby. That's ever so much sweller than that everlasting old diamond. He's something to land, too, Paul is, if I do say it--not, of course, that we've either of us got any money, but," she looked about the handsomely furnished house, "you'll have lots, and Paul'll soon be making it hand over fist--and I'll be marrying it!" She ended with a triumphant pirouette her vision of the future, and encountered Madame Boyle, entering with a white and gold evening wrap which sent her into another paroxysm of admiration. The dressmaker had just begun to say that she thought another line of gold braid around the neck would--when Mrs. Emery, looking out of the window, declared the caterer to be approaching and that she _must_ have aid from her subordinates before he should enter. "I do _not_ want to have that old red lemonade and sweet crackers everybody has, and slabs of ice-cream floating around on your plate. Think quick, all of you! What kind of crackers can we have?"