Ferry looked down at the dark head beside him.  He remembered no less than three fair maids who had, that evening, called his attention, by one means and another, to points less attractive than their own in other girls.  It struck him, as it had done more than once before, that a very warm generosity characterized the friendship between Josephine and Sally, inasmuch as each had seemed to him to be most anxious to have him appreciate the charms of the other.

As for Josephine herself, though he would not bluntly tell her so, she had seldom presented a more winsome picture than to-night.  Her dark colouring and piquant features possessed a quality very close to beauty, and her smile at Sally, at a moment when the girl, sweeping close, made her friend a special salutation, was undoubtedly a very attractive thing.

A burst of enthusiastic applause greeted the final whirl and bows of the “corn-stalk prance,” and Sally, breathless, dropped upon the bottom step of the wide staircase.  Jarvis, coming close to Max, whose hand-clapping was of the heartiest, said in his friend’s ear, “Why not tell her now that you’ve decided to stay here?  If you do, you’ll make this the happiest night of her life.”

Max looked at him.  Sally’s elder brother was in a more genial mood than he had been in for some time.  Somehow his new understanding that the Lanes possessed a more valuable piece of property than they had realized, property for which two buyers were ready at any hour to give them a satisfactory price, had put him into good humour.  Then he had been all the evening playing the pleasant part of host under conditions which had called forth many complimentary remarks from guests whose opinions he valued, and he was experiencing the comfortable glow which comes with such a role.

Just now, the sight of his little sister making of herself so charming a spectacle, had caused him to feel an unusual stirring of pride in her.  All these factors combined to help Jarvis’s suggestion.

He approached his sister as she sat, rosy cheeked and laughing, on the lowest stair, and stood before her.  “That wasn’t so bad,” he said, approvingly.  “You and Jarve had better get out a copyright on that—­you worked in some pretty fancy steps.  Got your skates on to-night, haven’t you?”

Sally thrust forward a small, white-shod foot.  “No, only some badly used-up pumps.  If it hadn’t been for Bob and his pipe-clay they would never have been presentable again.”

“You’re certainly great on making things go.  Er—­that is—­suppose you could make six chairs, a table, and an old couch furnish that room in there—­for the winter?”

Their eyes met.  Those who happened to be observing from a little distance—­and of these there were at least three who had as yet been unable to take their eyes off Sally—­saw such a wave of delight sweep over her expressive face as made it even more vivid than they had ever seen it.  After an instant’s wide-eyed silence, her lips parted, the girl was on her feet.