ruyn once more together, as well as in
creating the intimacy that sprang up during the next two months between
Miss Lucilla and the elder Mrs. Eveleth, it had certainly nothing to do
with the South American complications in the business of Van Tromp &
Co., which made Pruyn's departure for Rio de Janeiro a possibility of
the near future. He had long foreseen that he would be obliged to make
the journey sooner or later, but that he should have to do it just now
was particularly inconvenient. There was but one aspect in which the
expedition might prove a blessing in disguise--he might take Dorothea
with him.

During the six or eight weeks following the afternoon at Mrs.
Wappinger's he had bestowed upon Dorothea no small measure of attention,
obtaining much the same result as a mastiff might gain from his
investigation of the ways of a bird of paradise. He informed himself as
to her diversions and her dancing-classes, making the discovery that
what other girls' mothers did for them, Dorothea was doing for herself.
As far as he could see, she was bringing herself up with the aid of a
chosen band of eligible, well-conducted young men, varying in age from
nineteen to twenty-two, whom she was training as a sort of body-guard
against the day of her "coming out." On the occasions when he had
opportunities for observation he noted the skill with which she managed
them, as well as the chivalry with which they treated her; and yet there
was in the situation an indefinable element that displeased him. It was
something of a shock to learn that the flower he thought he was
cultivating in secluded sweetness under glass had taken root of its own
accord in the midst of young New York's great, gay parterre. Aware of
the possibilities of this soil to produce over-stimulated growth, he
could think of nothing better than to pluck it up and, temporarily at
least, transplant it elsewhere. Having come to the decision overnight,
he made the proposition when they met at breakfast in the morning.

A prettier object than Miss Dorothea Pruyn, at the head of her father's
table, it would have been difficult to find in the whole range of
"dainty rogues in porcelain." From the top of her bronze-colored hair to
the tip of her bronze-colored shoes she was as complete as taste could
make her. The flash of her eyes as she lifted them suddenly, and as
suddenly dropped them, over her task among the coffee-cups was like that
of summer waters; while the rapture