hich she worn two short vertical curls on
each temple.

She did not sit down, and Dan perceived that the ladies were going out.
In her tailor-made suit of close-fitting serge and her Paris bonnet,
carried like a crest on her pretty little head, Miss Anderson was
charming. She had a short veil that came across the base of her lively
nose, and left her mouth and chin to make the most of themselves,
unprejudiced by its irregularity.

Dan felt it a hardship to part with them, but he prepared to take
himself off. Miss Anderson asked him how long he was to be in
Washington, and said he must come to see them; they meant to stay two
weeks yet, and then they were going to Old Point Comfort; they had their
rooms engaged.

He walked down to their carriage with the ladies and put them into it,
and Miss Anderson still kept him talking there.

Her aunt said: "Why shouldn't you come with us, Mr. Mavering? We're
going to Mrs. Secretary Miller's reception."

Dan gave himself a glance. "I don't know--if you want me?"

"We want you," said Miss Anderson. "Very well, then, I'll go."

He got in, and they began rolling over that smooth Washington asphalt
which makes talk in a carriage as easy as in a drawing-room. Dan kept
saying to himself, "Now she's going to bring up Campobello;" but Miss
Anderson never recurred to their former meeting, and except for the
sense of old acquaintance which was manifest in her treatment of him
he might have thought that they had never met before. She talked of
Washington and its informal delights; and of those plans which her aunt
had made, like every one who spends a month in Washington, to spend all
the remaining winters of her life there.

It seemed to Dan that Miss Anderson was avoiding Campobello on his
account; he knew from what Alice had told him that there had been
much surmise about their affair after he had left the island, and he
suspected that Miss Anderson thought the subject was painful to him. He
wished to reassure her. He asked at the first break in the talk about
Washington, "How are the Trevors?"

"Oh, quite well," she said, promptly availing herself of the opening.
"Have you seen any of our Campobello friends lately in Boston?"

"No; I've been at home for the last month--in the country." He scanned
her face to see if she knew anything of his engagement. But she seemed
honestly ignorant of everything since Campobello; she was not just the
kind of New York girl who would visit in B