u have done, Aurora, money and smiles, bouquets and banquets and
sunbeams, good-will and baby-socks and knitted afghans, and it did not
rise up when you are attacked and say, 'No. An exception has to be made
in this case. We have all been bought!'"

Aurora, who had been listening with expanded, gathering-in eyes, cheeks
flushing deeper and deeper, turned her head sharply away to try to keep
from falling or being seen two unaccountable tears half blinding her.

The sight of her, by infection, moistened the eyes of the other women.

Estelle sought a quick way out of the emotional silence.

"Nell," she said, albeit with cracked voice, "if we're going out to
lunch, I guess we ought to be dressing. Go along, child, put on your
best bib and tucker."

"Oh, my best bib and tucker!" wailed Aurora. "Sent to the cleaner's this
morning, all green stains at the back!"

* * * * *

If Leslie had not called it a triumphal lunch, it might not have
appeared so very different from any other women's lunch at the season of
roses. Leslie herself, though, found in it the flavor of old-fashioned
romance, just faintly platitudinous, in which poetic justice is done.
Mrs. Foss, the more simple-minded organizer of it, felt that she should
remember it as an occasion when she had risen to the level, placed the
right cards in the fist of destiny, and created an event worthy to take
rank at least with those little triumphs of good housewives at whose
home the president of their husband's company arrived one night unlocked
for and was entertained with brilliant credit.

To the heroine of the feast, no need to say it was an inexpressibly
exciting, grand, and memorable occasion. Aurora hardly knew herself, so
much the object of attention and graciousness. She was in the mood to
give half of her goods to the poor. After the hostess had risen and made
a little speech, Aurora, unexpectedly to herself, and as if under
inspiration, responded by a little speech of her own, composed on the
spot. It was drowned at the end by hand-clapping all around the table.
Aurora seemed to herself to be living in a fairy-story.

* * * * *

As it was after five o'clock when she reached home, she was sure she
would find Gerald waiting for her. She had the whole day long been
looking forward with a sweet agitation to the moment of being with him
and telling him all about it.

She w