ea wind, and crowded with the
gayest, noisiest throng that had gathered there in a twelvemonth.

Everywhere the younger set were in evidence; slim, fresh, girlish
figures passed and gathered and crowded the stairs and galleries with a
flirt and flutter of winnowing skirts, delicate and light as
powder-puffs.

Mrs. Sanxon Orchil, a hard, highly coloured, tight-lipped little woman
with electric-blue eyes, was receiving with her slim brunette daughter,
Gladys.

"A tight little craft," was Austin's invariable comment on the matron;
and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a
converted yacht cleared for action.

Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and
from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed
expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retrousse
moustache.

The Lawns were there, the Minsters, the Craigs from Wyossett, the Grays
of Shadow Lake, the Draymores, Fanes, Mottlys, Cardwells--in fact, it
seemed as though all Long Island had been drained from Cedarhurst to
Islip and from Oyster Bay to Wyossett, to pour a stream of garrulous and
animated youth and beauty into the halls and over the verandas and
terraces and lawns of Hitherwood House.

It was to be a lantern frolic and a lantern dance and supper, all most
formally and impressively _sans facon_. And it began with a candle-race
for a big silver gilt cup--won by Sandon Craig and his partner, Evelyn
Cardwell, who triumphantly bore their lighted taper safely among the
throngs of hostile contestants, through the wilderness of flitting
lights, and across the lawn to the goal where they planted it,
unextinguished, in the big red paper lantern.

Selwyn and Eileen came up breathless and laughing with the others, she
holding aloft their candle, which somebody had succeeded in blowing out;
and everybody cheered the winners, significantly, for it was expected
that Miss Cardwell's engagement to young Craig would be announced before
very long.

Then rockets began to rush aloft, starring the black void with
iridescent fire; and everybody went to the lawn's edge where, below on
the bay, a dozen motor-boats, dressed fore and aft with necklaces of
electric lights, crossed the line at the crack of a cannon in a race for
another trophy.

Bets flew as the excitement grew, Eileen confining hers to gloves and
bonbons, and Selwyn loyally taking any offers of any kind as he
uncompromisin