“Oh, but I know you must think so; every one says you do,” Lois urged, with a swift glance up at him, which, somehow, Keith would have liked to avoid.

“Then, I suppose it must be so; for every one knows my innermost thoughts.  But I think she was more beautiful when she was younger.  I do not know what it is; but there is something in Society that, after a few years, takes away the bloom of ingenuousness and puts in its place just the least little shade of unreality.”

“I know what you mean; but she is so beautiful that one would never notice it.  What a power such beauty is!  I should be afraid of it.”  Lois was speaking almost to herself, and Keith, as she was deeply absorbed in observing Mrs. Lancaster, gazed at her with renewed interest.

“I’d so much rather be loved for myself’,” the girl went on earnestly.  “I think it is one of the compensations that those who want such beauty have-”

“Well, it is one of the things which you must always hold merely as a conjecture, for you can never know by experience.”

She glanced up at him with a smile, half pleased, half reproving.

“Do you think I am the sort that likes flattery?  I believe you think we are all silly.  I thought you were too good a friend of mine to attempt that line with me.”

Keith declared that all women loved flattery, but protested, of course, that he was not flattering her.

“Why should I?” he laughed.

“Oh, just because you think it will please me, and because it is so easy.  It is so much less trouble.  It takes less intellect, and you don’t think I am worth spending intellect on.”

This Keith stoutly denied.

She gave him a fleeting glance out of her brown eyes.  “She, however, is as good as she is handsome,” she said, returning to Mrs. Lancaster.

“Yes; she is one of those who ’do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.’”

“There are not a great many like that around here,” Lois smiled.  “Here comes one now?” she added, as Mrs. Nailor moved up to them.  She was “so glad” to see Miss Huntington out.  “You must like your Winter in New York?” she said, smiling softly.  “You have such opportunities for seeing interesting people-like Mr. Keith, here?” She turned her eyes on Keith.

“Oh, yes.  I do.  I see so many entertaining people,” said Lois, innocently.

“They are very kind to you?” purred the elder lady.

“Most condescending.”  Lois turned her eyes toward Keith with a little sparkle in them; but as she read his appreciation a smile stole into them.

Dinner was solemnly announced, and the couples swept out in that stately manner appropriate to solemn occasions, such as marriages, funerals, and fashionable dinners.

“Do you know your place?” asked Keith of Lois, to whom he had been assigned.

“Don’t I?  A governess and not know her place!  You must help me through.”