tes of fortune of whom the Proutyites read in the
illustrated magazines and Sunday supplements. The least initiated was
conscious of the perfect taste and skilful workmanship which had
conspired to produce this result. Kate descended slowly, with neither
undue deliberation nor haste, upon her lips the faint one-sided smile
which was characteristic.

The moment was as dramatic as if the situation had been planned for the
effect, since there were few present to whose minds did not leap to the
picture of that other girl who had come bounding down the stairs,
grotesque of dress and as assured and joyous in her ignorance as a
frisky colt.

In a continued silence which no one seemed to have the temerity or the
presence of mind to break, the Sheep Queen turned at the foot of the
stairway, and the various groups separated on a common impulse to let
her pass. She went straight to Prentiss, whose greeting was a smile of
adoring tenderness.

"Am I late, father?"

The sharp intake of breath throughout the room might have come from one
pair of lungs. "Father!" The rumor was true then! Amazement came first,
and then uneasiness. What effect would the relationship have upon their
personal interests? Had she any feeling which would lead her to use her
influence to their detriment?

Kate and her father would have had more than their share of attention
anywhere, for they had the same distinction of carriage, the same grave
repose. Either one of them would have stood out in a far more brilliant
assembly than that gathered in the Prouty House.

The social training Mrs. Abram Pantin had received at church functions
in Keokuk now came to her rescue. Gathering herself, she was able to
chirp:

"This _is_ a surprise!"

"You know my daughter, of course?" to Mrs. Sudds, whose jaw had dropped,
so that she stood slightly open-mouthed, arrayed in a frock made in the
fashion of the Moyen age and recently handed down from a great-uncle's
relict who had passed on. Since this confection bulged where it should
have clung and clung where it should have bulged, it was the general
impression that Mrs. Sudds was out in a maternity gown. Mrs. Neifkins in
fourteen gores stood beside Mrs. Toomey in a hobble skirt reminiscent of
her Chicago trip, while a faint odor of moth balls, cedar chips and
gasolene permeated the atmosphere in the immediate vicinity of all this
ancient elegance.

"We all have met," Kate replied, and her glance included the group.