"Do you think you had better go, dear?" he asked. "Is little Harry well enough to leave? And there is your dress! I suppose it will be a very fine affair." "Cousin Alida made a point of my being present. I must go for dinner. I need not stay long after." "I have an engagement at the Union Club that very night--rather an important one--I wonder how I can manage?" "You can take me to the Zabriski house, and make your apologies in person to Cousin Alida. After your dinner at the club, you can call for me. I dare say I shall be ready to go home." "Those Zabriski affairs are so very stupid." "Still, we like to have the invitations." "If you do go, Yanna, dress as Mrs. Harry Filmer ought to dress." "Certainly, Harry, I will." And then with renewed hope she made her preparations. They were so successful that her face was radiant with delight when she pressed her cousin's large, capable hand and whispered: "Harry said I was the most beautiful creature he had seen this season." "You are," answered Miss Alida, looking with pride at the stately woman robed in white satin and lace, and sparkling with jewels. Fortunately, she had Professor Snowdon for a companion; and he brought out the brightest and sweetest traits of her nature, so that she recaptured all that old charm of presence which had once made her irresistible. So swiftly grew her confidence in her own powers again that she was easily persuaded to take a share in the music that followed the dinner; and when Harry came to escort her home he found her standing by the piano, and singing to its wandering, penetrating melody, with a delightful voice: "Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play; Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair; Love does on both her lips forever stray, And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there." And as she sang, she caught Harry's beaming glance; and so she sang to him, thrilling his heart with the passionate melody till a love like that of his first betrothal swayed it. When she went away, Miss Alida put her face under the pretty pink hood, and whispered: "Good night, Yanna! You have done everything I wished and hoped. Harry is saved!" But Miss Alida knew only the probable ways of men and women. This exquisite Adriana clothed in satin, and gemmed with sapphires, seemed to her the proper angel of the recreant husband. But the wisdom of The All Wise had ordained a very different woman; even one of those poor souls expected by theologians to be damned, but intended by God to be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. CHAPTER IX