the most pronounced party garments. Ross had
donned a Tuxedo and pinned a tiny, pink rose in his buttonhole. Elinor
wore a black gown that was very low in the neck to Arethusa, although
in reality it was the most modest of decolletage, and a few of the same
pink roses were clustered at her belt.

"I was so afraid I was late," began Arethusa breathlessly, then she
stopped short, halfway across the room, when she fully realized the
costuming of the pair before the fire.

"Oh, you all are giving a Party and I didn't know anything about it!"
she exclaimed.

Ross raised himself just a trifle from the comfortable depths of his
chair. "Are you quite rested?" he enquired gravely.

But she scarcely heard that he spoke. "Oh, I just wish I'd known it was
a Party!" she repeated. "I wish I'd known!" She glanced down at the
plainness of her own attire and then at Elinor's simple evening frock.

Her face clouded. And then a truly dreadful thought intruded itself.
Perhaps she was not even expected at this Party; that may have been why
she had not been called.

Her troubled grey eyes spelled something of this to Elinor, so she
pulled a plump chair a little nearer to her own and patted it
invitingly, just as Miss Asenath patted the couch for Arethusa to join
her.

"It isn't a party, Arethusa dear," said Elinor. "Come over by us and be
sociable and I'll tell you all about it."

She explained to Arethusa that it was just three years ago on the
twenty-fifth of October (this very night) that she and Ross had first
met each other, at a dinner at the Baronne de Braunecker's in Paris
when she had been visiting the Baronne and Ross had come as a guest to
the dinner given in her honor.

"I fell in love with her on the spot," interrupted Ross, "and I could
hardly wait for morning so I could go back to call on her."

Arethusa flashed her father a brief smile of appreciation for this bit
of information and proceeded to grow more and more enraptured with the
whole affair as Elinor added to the narrative. They were celebrating
the occasion of that meeting this evening, she continued. Ross had sent
her the flowers, touching the cluster at her belt, for she had worn
pink roses at the Baronne's dinner; and they were to have for this
anniversary meal as many things as Elinor had been able to remember
they had eaten together at the first one.

Arethusa's eyes sparkled.

What a darling idea! This keeping of the Anniversary of so Memorable an