Somehow I didn’t enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner, and when I was ready I stood before the mirror and looked at myself a long time.  I was very tall and slim and—­well, I suppose I might say regal in that amethyst crepe with the soft rose-point, but I looked to myself about the eyes as I had been doing for years.  And to-night that Rene triumph made me feel no different from one of Miss Hettie Primm’s conceptions that I had been wearing for ages with indifference and total lack of style.  I shrugged my shoulder with what I thought was sadness, though it felt a trifle like temper, too, and went on down into the garden to see if any of my flowers had a cheer-up message for me.

But it was a bored garden I stepped into just as the last purple flush of day was being drunk down by the night.  The tall white lilies laid their heads over on my breast and went to sleep before I had said a word to them, and the nasturtiums snarled round my feet until they got my slippers stained with green.  Only Billy’s bachelor’s-buttons stood up stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew.  I felt cheered at the sight of them, and bent down to gather a bunch of them to wear, even if they did clash with my amethyst draperies, when an amused smile, that was done out loud, came from the path just behind me.

“Don’t gather them all to-night, Mrs. Molly,” said Dr. John teasingly, as he stooped beside me.  “Leave a few for—­for the others.”  I waked up in a half-second, and so did all those prying flowers, I felt sure.

“I was just gathering them for place bouquets for—­for the girls,” I said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him.  Why it is that the minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross, is more than I can say, but I do.  I never possibly know how to answer any remark that he may happen to make, unless it is something that makes me lose my temper.  His next remark was the usual spark.

“Better give them the run of the garden—­alone, Mrs. Molly.  No chance for them unless you do,” he said laughingly, “or the buttons, either,” he added under his breath so I could just hear it.  I wish Mrs. Johnson could have heard how soft his voice lingered over that little half-sentence.  She is so experienced she could have told me if it meant—­but, of course, he isn’t like other men!

There are lots of questions I’m going to ask Alfred after I’m married to him.

“Oh, you Molly,” came a hail in Tom’s voice from the gate, just as I was making up my mind to try and think of something to wither the doctor with, and he and Ruth Clinton came up the front walk to meet us.  I wondered why I was having a party in my house when being alone in my garden with just a neighbour was so much more interesting, but I had to begin to enjoy myself right off, for in a few minutes all the rest came.