a common
'combination,' as you call it, in the houses of the clergy. The only
thing that's odd about me is that I enjoy them both--Emerson and the
stocking."

A knock was heard, and Ralph exclaimed:

"Damn those people! I wish they weren't coming!"

"It's only Mr. Turner, on the floor below," said Mary, and she felt
grateful to Mr. Turner for having alarmed Ralph, and for having given a
false alarm.

"Will there be a crowd?" Ralph asked, after a pause.

"There'll be the Morrises and the Crashaws, and Dick Osborne, and
Septimus, and all that set. Katharine Hilbery is coming, by the way, so
William Rodney told me."

"Katharine Hilbery!" Ralph exclaimed.

"You know her?" Mary asked, with some surprise.

"I went to a tea-party at her house."

Mary pressed him to tell her all about it, and Ralph was not at all
unwilling to exhibit proofs of the extent of his knowledge. He described
the scene with certain additions and exaggerations which interested Mary
very much.

"But, in spite of what you say, I do admire her," she said. "I've only
seen her once or twice, but she seems to me to be what one calls a
'personality.'"

"I didn't mean to abuse her. I only felt that she wasn't very
sympathetic to me."

"They say she's going to marry that queer creature Rodney."

"Marry Rodney? Then she must be more deluded than I thought her."

"Now that's my door, all right," Mary exclaimed, carefully putting
her wools away, as a succession of knocks reverberated unnecessarily,
accompanied by a sound of people stamping their feet and laughing. A
moment later the room was full of young men and women, who came in with
a peculiar look of expectation, exclaimed "Oh!" when they saw Denham,
and then stood still, gaping rather foolishly.

The room very soon contained between twenty and thirty people, who found
seats for the most part upon the floor, occupying the mattresses, and
hunching themselves together into triangular shapes. They were all young
and some of them seemed to make a protest by their hair and dress, and
something somber and truculent in the expression of their faces, against
the more normal type, who would have passed unnoticed in an omnibus or
an underground railway. It was notable that the talk was confined to
groups, and was, at first, entirely spasmodic in character, and muttered
in undertones as if the speakers were suspicious of their fellow-guests.

Katharine Hilbery came in rather late, and took up a posit