almost thought it must have
been sent by mistake.

"Oh, no; now come. Ferdy won't be there, and Mrs. Wickersham wants to be
friendly with you. You and Ferdy don't get along; but neither do she and
Ferdy. You know they have fallen out? Poor old thing! She was talking
about it the other day, and she burst out crying. She said he had been
her idol."

"What is the matter?"

"Oh, Ferdy's selfishness."

"He is a brute! Think of a man quarrelling with his mother! Why--!" He
went into a reverie in which his face grew very soft, while Mrs.
Lancaster watched him silently. Presently he started. "I have nothing
against her except a sort of general animosity from boyhood, which I am
sorry to have."

"Oh, well, then, come. As people grow older they outgrow their
animosities and wish to make friends."

"You being so old as to have experienced it?" said Keith.

"I am nearly thirty years old," she said. "Isn't it dreadful?"

"Aurora is much older than that," said Keith.

"Ah, Sir Flatterer, I have a mirror." But her eyes filled with a
pleasant light as Keith said:

"Then it will corroborate what needs no proof."

She knew it was flattery, but she enjoyed it and dimpled.

"Now, you will come? I want you to come." She looked at him with a soft
glow in her face.

"Yes. On your invitation."

"Alice Lancaster, place one good deed to thy account: 'Blessed are the
peacemakers,'" said Mrs. Lancaster.

When Keith arrived at Mrs. Wickersham's he found the company assembled
in her great drawing-room--the usual sort to be found in great
drawing-rooms of large new chateau-like mansions in a great and
commercial city.

"Mr. Keats!" called out the prim servant. They always took this poetical
view of his name.

Mrs. Wickersham greeted him civilly and solemnly. She had aged much
since Keith saw her last, and had also grown quite deaf. Her face showed
traces of the desperate struggle she was making to keep up appearances.
It was apparent that she had not the least idea who he was; but she
shook hands with him much as she might have done at a funeral had he
called to pay his respects. Among the late arrivals was Mrs. Wentworth.
She was the richest-dressed woman in the room, and her jewels were the
finest, but she had an expression on her face, as she entered, which
Keith had never seen there. Her head was high, and there was an air of
defiance about her which challenged the eye at once.

"I don't think I shall speak to her," said