friends' dinner-tables--but he
hates this sort of thing. He's beautifully polite, but he's bored. My
only hope is that Con will revive him. It's her turn next."

If anything could revive a weary bishop, who had that day attended two
funerals and a diocesan convention, it would be both the sight and the
sound of Miss Constance Carew.

"Isn't she _dear_?" breathed Sally, in Josephine's ear, as Constance took
her place, her slender, gray-clad figure and interest-stirring face a
notable contrast to the personality of the professional singer who had
opened the program of occasional numbers, interspersed through an evening
of--so-called--conversation. Sally's hands were unconsciously clasped
tight all through the song, and her eyes left the singer's face only long
enough to observe that the bishop's tired eyes were also fixed upon the
creator of all those wonderful, liquid notes, and to fancy that, for the
moment, at least, he forgot how hot his neck was inside his close,
clerical neckwear.

"That pays me for coming," was the reward Constance had from Sally, whose
praise she had somehow come to value more highly than that of most people
she knew. Sally might be no musician herself, but she was a most
sympathetic listener, and could appreciate the points singers love to
have appreciated, as few people can.

"That pays me!" Constance answered, drawing a long breath. "But, Sally,
will it never end? It's nearly eleven, now."

"Thank heaven! I'd lost all count of time. The boys said they'd be here
at eleven. But Dorothy is not to know they're within five miles of here.
She'd never forgive them."

As she spoke a maid came to her elbow and handed her a note. Retiring to
a secluded corner to read it, Sally returned with triumphant eyes. "We're
to go down the lawn to a gate that opens on the other road. They're
there. Now--to get away from Dorothy."

This proved difficult.

"Not let Neil take you back? Why not? How will you get back? But you're
not going yet?"

"Both the girls have performed twice, with two encores. You don't expect
any more of them this hot night? Your bishop is going to sleep; do let
him off and send him to bed. Yes, we must go now. They've sent for us.
Don't bother about how we're going to get back--Neil will be thankful not
to have to take us."

Thus Sally. And when Dorothy persisted in exclamations and questions her
guests fell into a little gusto of enthusiasm over the stately old house
which Neil