These were days indeed! It was Lent, but there were all the minor pleasures of luncheons and card-parties, and little evening entertainments held at Mrs. Leverich’s hospitable mansion. It mattered not whether there was anything going on in the town or not; society focused at her house, with Dosia for the central point. When she thought of going back again to Lois it was with a blank shiver. Lois, indeed, had not been well lately; the children were out of quarantine, but she had a sore throat, and kept her room under the care of a trained nurse. Dosia had not seen her, but only Justin, who looked tired and older. Dosia was not to return now until after Easter and after the ball—Mrs. Leverich was going to give a ball for Dosia; it was to be, in a sense, her “coming out.” She had by this time become quite used to her position as daughter of the house, accepted luxuries as a matter of course, and even suggested improvements, when she found that it pleased Mrs. Leverich to have her do so. She received that lady’s embraces gracefully, brought newspapers unasked for Mr. Leverich, and gave orders to the maids for her hostess. She had grown accustomed to being waited on, petted, made much of, and given presents, and blossomed like the rose under this vernal shower of kindness; her dress, her manner, her very expression, betrayed the ease of elegance. She did not like to own, even to herself, that long conversations with Mrs. Leverich were somewhat tiresome when the subject was neither Lawson nor herself, and she learned to get out of the way of too many tête-à-têtes. This did not keep her from having a fervent gratitude for all the blessings of the situation, and a real love for the dispenser of them. Now, when the time of her stay was narrowing to a close, she clung to each day as if it neared the end of life; every pleasure was doubly dear in that it was the last of its kind. To be sure, the fairy prince had not arrived as yet—Bailey Girard, who had come to the house while she was still a stranger to it, had been half across the Continent since. It is one of the shabby jests that life is always playing us, that two who have met once as wayfarers on the same road, with the memory of that one meeting so curiously vivid and intimate that it seems as if the fate of the next turning must bring them within touch again, are yet kept out of sight or sound of each other for miles by the slight accidents of travel. Fate, when we count upon her, is apt to be extraordinarily slow in working out her fulfillments.