ed. And as Florence was really responsible for its having been
in a position to interfere, so to say, she had actually in a manner
protected her protege and also shown some of that power of which she had
boasted when she told him that sometimes she made members of her family
"step around pretty lively."

Another of her wishes appeared to be on the way to fulfilment, too. She
had hoped that something memorable might be done with the c'lection, and
the interview with her grandfather, her Aunt Julia, and Kitty Silver
seemed to leave this beyond doubt.

CHAPTER TEN

Now August came, that florid lazy month when mid-summer dawdles along in
trailing greeneries, and the day is like some jocund pagan, all flushed
and asleep, with dripping beard rosy in a wine bowl of fat vine leaves.
Yet, in this languorous time there may befall a brisker night, cool and
lively as an intrusive boy--a night made for dancing. On such a night a
hasty thought might put it as desirable that all the world should be
twenty-two years old and in love, like Noble Dill.

Upon the white bed in his room, as he dressed, lay the flat black
silhouettes of his short evening coat and trousers, side by side, trim
from new pressing; and whenever he looked at them Noble felt rich, tall,
distinguished, and dramatic. It is a mistake, as most literary legends
are mistakes, to assume that girls are the only people subject to
before-the-party exhilaration. At such times a girl is often in the
anxious yet determined mood of a runner before a foot race, or she may
be merely hopeful; some are merry and some are grim, but arithmetical
calculation of some sort, whether glorious or uneasy, is busy in their
eyes as they pin and pat before their mirrors. To behold romance gone
light-headed, turn to the humbler sort of man-creature under
twenty-three. Alone in his room, he may enact for you scenes of flowery
grace and most capricious gallantry, rehearsals as unconscious as the
curtsies of field daisies in a breeze. He has neither doubt nor
certainty of his charm; he has no arithmetic at all, and is often so
free of calculation that he does not even pull down the shades at his
windows.

Unfortunately for the neighbours, and even for passers-by, since Noble's
room had a window visible from the street, his prophetic mother had
closed his shutters before he began to dress. Thus she deprived honest
folk of what surely must have been to them the innocent pleasure of
seein