ndship in his heart for this rather anomalous lady, who, more than
half her daughter's life, had lived away from her daughter's father,
upon apparently perfectly good terms with him, and so discreetly and
self-respectfully that no breath of reproach had touched her. Until now,
however, her position had not really concerned Westover, and it would
not have concerned him now, if it had not been for a design that formed
itself in his mind as soon as he knew that Mrs. Vostrand meant to pass
the winter in Boston. He felt at once that he could not do things
by halves for a woman who had once done them for him by wholes and
something over, and he had instantly decided that he must not only
be very pleasant to her himself, but he must get his friends to be
pleasant, too. His friends were some of the nicest people in Boston;
nice in both the personal and the social sense; he knew they would not
hesitate to sacrifice themselves for him in a good cause, and that made
him all the more anxious that the cause should be good beyond question.

Since his last return from Paris he had been rather a fad as a teacher,
and his class had been kept quite strictly to the ladies who got it up
and to such as they chose to let enter it. These were not all chosen
for wealth or family; there were some whose gifts gave the class
distinction, and the ladies were glad to have them. It would be easy to
explain Mrs. Vostrand to these, but the others might be more difficult;
they might have their anxieties, and Westover meant to ask the leader of
the class to help him receive at the studio tea he had at once imagined
for the Vostrands, and that would make her doubly responsible.

He found himself drawing a very deep and long breath before he began
to mount the many stairs to his studio, and wishing either that Mrs.
Vostrand had not decided to spend the winter in Boston, or else that he
were of a slacker conscience and could wear his gratitude more lightly.
But there was some relief in thinking that he could do nothing for a
month yet. He gained a degree of courage by telling the ladies, when he
went to find them in their new apartment, that he should want them to
meet a few of his friends at tea as soon as people began to get back
to town; and he made the most of their instant joy in accepting his
invitation.

His pleasure was somehow dashed a little, before he left them, by the
announcement of Jeff Durgin's name.

"I felt bound to send him my card," s