“You look wonderful,” Cowperwood said as she passed him.

“I’ll look different to-night,” was her answer.

She had swung herself with a slight, swaggering stride into the dining-room and disappeared.  Norah and her mother stayed to chat with Mrs. Cowperwood.

“Well, it’s lovely now, isn’t it?” breathed Mrs. Butler.  “Sure you’ll be happy here.  Sure you will.  When Eddie fixed the house we’re in now, says I:  ‘Eddie, it’s almost too fine for us altogether—­surely it is,’ and he says, says ’e, ‘Norah, nothin’ this side o’ heavin or beyond is too good for ye’—­and he kissed me.  Now what d’ye think of that fer a big, hulkin’ gossoon?”

“It’s perfectly lovely, I think, Mrs. Butler,” commented Mrs. Cowperwood, a little bit nervous because of others.

“Mama does love to talk so.  Come on, mama.  Let’s look at the dining-room.”  It was Norah talking.

“Well, may ye always be happy in it.  I wish ye that.  I’ve always been happy in mine.  May ye always be happy.”  And she waddled good-naturedly along.

The Cowperwood family dined hastily alone between seven and eight.  At nine the evening guests began to arrive, and now the throng was of a different complexion—­girls in mauve and cream-white and salmon-pink and silver-gray, laying aside lace shawls and loose dolmans, and the men in smooth black helping them.  Outside in the cold, the carriage doors were slamming, and new guests were arriving constantly.  Mrs. Cowperwood stood with her husband and Anna in the main entrance to the reception room, while Joseph and Edward Cowperwood and Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Cowperwood lingered in the background.  Lillian looked charming in a train gown of old rose, with a low, square neck showing a delicate chemisette of fine lace.  Her face and figure were still notable, though her face was not as smoothly sweet as it had been years before when Cowperwood had first met her.  Anna Cowperwood was not pretty, though she could not be said to be homely.  She was small and dark, with a turned-up nose, snapping black eyes, a pert, inquisitive, intelligent, and alas, somewhat critical, air.  She had considerable tact in the matter of dressing.  Black, in spite of her darkness, with shining beads of sequins on it, helped her complexion greatly, as did a red rose in her hair.  She had smooth, white well-rounded arms and shoulders.  Bright eyes, a pert manner, clever remarks—­these assisted to create an illusion of charm, though, as she often said, it was of little use.  “Men want the dolly things.”

In the evening inpour of young men and women came Aileen and Norah, the former throwing off a thin net veil of black lace and a dolman of black silk, which her brother Owen took from her.  Norah was with Callum, a straight, erect, smiling young Irishman, who looked as though he might carve a notable career for himself.  She wore a short, girlish dress that came to a little below her shoe-tops, a pale-figured lavender and white silk, with a fluffy hoop-skirt of dainty laced-edged ruffles, against which tiny bows of lavender stood out in odd places.  There was a great sash of lavender about her waist, and in her hair a rosette of the same color.  She looked exceedingly winsome—­eager and bright-eyed.