. . If one has never tasted _Asti Spumante_, then one can
easily be pleased with _Chianti_.

Her secret dream was the young girl's protection against over-eagerness.

To her young hostess this indifference came as an enormous relief.

"She's all right," Ruth reported to her mother, upon an afternoon that
Maria Angelina had taken herself downstairs to the piano and to a
prospective call from Johnny Byrd while Ruth herself, in riding togs,
awaited Bob Martin and his horses.

"She isn't jumping down Johnny's throat at all," the girl went on. "I
was afraid, that first day, when she asked such nutty questions. . . .
But she seems to take it all for granted. That ought to hold Johnny for
a while--long enough so he won't get tired and throw her down for
somebody else before he goes."

"You think, then, there isn't a chance of----?"

Mrs. Blair left the hypothesis in midair, convicted of ancient sentiment
by the frank amusement of her young daughter's look.

"No, my dear, there isn't a chance of," Ruth so competently informed her
that Mrs. Blair, in revolt, was moved to murmur, "After all, Ruth,
people do fall in love and get married in this world."

"Oh, yes."

Patiently Ruth gave this thought her consideration and in
fair-mindedness turned her scrutiny upon past days to evoke some sign
that should contradict her own conclusions.

"She's got something--it's something different from the rest of us--but
it would take more than that to do for Johnny Byrd."

Definitely, Ruth shook her head.

"You don't suppose she's beginning to think----?" hazarded Mrs. Blair.

Better than her daughter, she envisaged the circumstances which might
have led, in her Cousin Lucy's mind, to this young girl's visit. Lucy,
herself, had been taken abroad in those early days by a competent aunt.
Now Lucy, in the turn of the tide, was sending her daughter to America.

Jane Blair would have liked to play fairy godmother, to make a
benevolent gesture, to scatter largess. . . .

But she was not going to have it said that she was a fortune hunter. She
was not going to alarm Johnny Byrd and implicate Bob Martin and disturb
the delicate balance between him and Ruth.

Lucy's daughter must take her chances. This wasn't Europe.

"Well, I've said enough to her," Ruth stated briskly, in answer to her
mother's supposition. "I don't know how much she believes. . . . You
know Ri-Ri is seething with Old World sentiment and she may be such a
little nu