nd dignified
parties. Among his grand and fashionable guests there was nearly always
a sprinkling of the more important members of the literary world. The
night after I arrived there was to be a particularly notable dinner. I
had come prepared to appear at it. Jean had brought fine array for
me and a case of jewels. I knew I must be "dressed up" and look as
important as I could. When I went up-stairs after tea, Jean was in my
room laying things out on the bed.

"The man you like so much is to dine here to-night, Ysobel," she said.
"Mr. Hector MacNairn."

I believe I even put my hand suddenly to my heart as I stood and looked
at her, I was so startled and so glad.

"You must tell him how much you love his books," she said. She had a
quiet, motherly way.

"There will be so many other people who will want to talk to him," I
answered, and I felt a little breathless with excitement as I said it.

"And I should be too shy to know how to say such things properly."

"Don't be afraid of him," was her advice. "The man will be like his
books, and they're the joy of your life."

She made me look as nice as she could in the new dress she had brought;
she made me wear the Muircarrie diamonds and sent me downstairs. It does
not matter who the guests were; I scarcely remember. I was taken in to
dinner by a stately elderly man who tried to make me talk, and at last
was absorbed by the clever woman on his other side.

I found myself looking between the flowers for a man's face I could
imagine was Hector MacNairn's. I looked up and down and saw none I could
believe belonged to him. There were handsome faces and individual ones,
but at first I saw no Hector MacNairn. Then, on bending forward a little
to glance behind an epergne, I found a face which it surprised and
pleased me to see. It was the face of the traveler who had helped the
woman in mourning out of the railway carriage, baring his head before
her grief. I could not help turning and speaking to my stately elderly
partner.

"Do you know who that is--the man at the other side of the table?" I
asked.

Old Lord Armour looked across and answered with an amiable smile. "It is
the author the world is talking of most in these days, and the talking
is no new thing. It's Mr. Hector MacNairn."

No one but myself could tell how glad I was. It seemed so right that
he should be the man who had understood the deeps of a poor, passing
stranger woman's woe. I had so loved that quiet