of him. And both were
plainly listening.

"If--if you'd come up and make it go," she said, almost whispering.

He nodded energetically.

She went behind his chair. Thomas was in wait there still. Down here he
seemed to raise a wall of aloofness between himself and her, to wear a
magnificent air, all cold and haughty, that was quite foreign to the
nursery. As she passed him, she dimpled up at him saucily. But it failed
to slack the starchy tenseness of his visage.

She turned another corner and curtsied her way along the opposite side
of the table. On this side were precisely as many high-backed chairs as
on the other. And now, "You _adorable_ child!" cried the ladies, and
"Haw! Haw! Don't the rest of us get a smile?" said the men.

When all the curtseying was over, and the last corner was turned, she
paused. "And what is my daughter going to say about the rabbit in the
cabbage?" asked her mother.

There was a man seated on either hand. Gwendolyn gave each a quick
glance. At Johnnie Blake's she had been often alone with her father and
mother during that one glorious week. But in town her little
confidences, for the most part, had to be made in just this way--under
the eye of listening guests and servants, in a low voice.

"I like the rabbit," she answered, "but my Puffy Bear was nicer, only he
got old and shabby, and so--"

At this point Jane took one quick step forward.

"But if you'd come up to the nursery soon," Gwendolyn hastened to add.
"_Would_ you, moth--er?"

"Yes, indeed, dear."

Gwendolyn went up to Jane, who was waiting, rooted and rigid, close by.
The reddish eyes of the nurse-maid fairly bulged with importance. Her
lips were sealed primly. Her face was so pale that every freckle she
had stood forth clearly. How strangely--even direly--the great
dining-room affected _her_--who was so at ease in the nursery! No smile,
no wink, no remark, either lively or sensible, ever melted the ice of
_her_ countenance. And it was with a look almost akin to pity that
Gwendolyn held out a hand.

Jane took it with a great show of affection. Then once more Potter swung
wide the double doors.

Gwendolyn turned her head for a last glimpse of her father, sitting,
grave and haggard, at the far end of the table; at her beautiful,
jeweled mother; at the double line of high-backed chairs that showed,
now a man's stern black-and-white, next the gayer colors of a woman's
dress; at the clustered lights; the glitter; the