We sat in the drawing-room to await Arthur Tamworth, and although we both made an admirable feint of ease and nonchalance, it was so obviously a feint that we gave it up, and simply killed time. Of course, we were both accustomed to dinners and receptions--in fact, we had been nourished on them. But other people's affairs are--other people's affairs. This was ours, and our first, and there is no use concealing the fact that we were both nervous. Letitia read Ovid, upside down, and seemed to derive intellectual entertainment from it, judging by her face. I merely looked out of the window, not to watch for Tamworth's advent, but because the window seemed to be such a fitting place to look out of. When the bell finally rang, Letitia had the decency to adjust Ovid, and I stood by the fireplace in an unstudied, host-like way, with my hands behind me, although there had never been any warmth in that fireplace and never would be--as long as we had steam-heat for nothing. As we waited, a colored head and nothing more popped in at the door, and the younger Miss Carter--for it must have been she--remarked: "There's a man outside who wants to come in." "Never let any one in," I said sternly, for there had been an epidemic of burglars, while suspicious characters simply prowled, seeking whom they might devour. "Always keep the chain on the door." "He says he's come to dinner," remarked the colored head, with a chuckle. Letitia jumped up as though shot. I felt myself redden. Under the caption of "man" we had not recognized Arthur Tamworth. Of course, he was a man in the best sense of the word, but the best sense of the word is not polite society's. I rushed to the door in a fever, and unchained it noisily. Arthur Tamworth stood outside looking just a trifle annoyed--but not more annoyed than I was. "Come in, old chap," I said, with elaborate cordiality, "we were waiting for you. The maid who opened the door was not our maid, you know--merely her sister--and--er--" "That's all right, Fairfax," Arthur Tamworth declared, as he shook my hand, "I didn't know what I had struck. Having, however, lived in New York all my life, I know something about the ladies who help. Hope I'm not late?" I insisted that this was Liberty Hall--a remark that is always supposed to put all at their ease. Then I escorted him to the drawing-room where Letitia stood, peerless in her blue diaphanous gown. Mr. Tamworth was so engrossed with Letitia's appearance that he did not notice the tiger-head, and tripping over it, fell at her feet. I assisted him to rise and introduced him to my wife. His fall, however, had irritated him a bit. He was much older than we were, being a somewhat portly person of fifty summers, with iron-gray hair and a florid complexion. "I'm so sorry," said Letitia graciously, "Archie and I always fall over that tiger-head, and have really grown to like it. But it is a stupid thing--very much in the way."