es----" murmured the girl.

"If I could look as much like a princess as you do in them----"

"Mrs. Robeson, in that lovely dull red you're a queen----"

"--dowager," finished Juliet gayly. "Well, I'll be proud of you, and you
can be proud of me, if you like, and together we'll make those hungry men
think there's nothing like us. The dinner's the thing. Isn't it the
luckiest chance in the world I sent for those oysters this morning? Doctor
Barnes is perfectly fine, but he never would believe in the happiness of
married life if the coffee were poor or the beefsteak too much broiled.
Doesn't the table look pretty? Those red geranium blossoms you brought me
give it just the gay touch it needed this winter night."

* * * * *

Three men, standing about the wide fireplace, warming cold hands at its
friendly blaze, turned expectantly as their youthful hostess came in,
followed by a graceful girl in gray. Juliet presented her guests with the
air of conferring upon them a favour, and they seemed quite ready to
accept it as such.

Anthony looked on with interest to see a person whom he had known hitherto
only as a pretty but poor young neighbour whom Juliet had engaged to help
her for a certain part of every day, introduced as his wife's friend, and
greeted by Doctor Barnes and Wayne Carey with quite evident admiration and
pleasure. He looked hard at her, as Carey seated her, noticing for the
first time that she was really worth consideration, and remembering
vaguely that Juliet had more than once tried to impress him with the fact.
If it had not been for the other fellows, with whose eyes as their host he
was now stimulated to observe her, he might have been still some time
longer in coming to the realisation that Juliet had found somebody in whom
her genuine interest was not misplaced. But Anthony Robeson had all his
life been singularly blind to the fascinations of most other women than
Juliet. As he turned his keen gaze from Rachel Redding to the charming
figure that sat on the other side of the table the satisfaction in his
eyes became so pronounced that it could mean, Dr. Roger Barnes admitted to
himself, as he caught it, nothing less than a very real happiness.

It was not an elaborate dinner. It was not by any means the sort of dinner
Juliet might have prepared had she known that morning whom she was to
entertain. It was merely a dinner planned with affectionate care to plea