Arthur in moire
antique and diamonds, were enchanted; noting, too, Peter's
perfectly appointed dress and courtly manners, he taking the whole
responsibility of the occasion on his own shoulders--head of the
house, really, for the time; receiving people at the door; bowing
them out again; carrying glasses of punch--stopping to hobnob
with this or that old neighbor: "Ah, my dear Mrs. Townehalle, how
young and well you look; and you tell me this is your daughter. I
knew your mother, my dear, when she was your age, and she was the
very prettiest girl in the county. And now let me present you to a
most charming woman, Mrs. Foster, of New York, who--" etc., etc.
Or greeting some old gray-head with: "Well, well--of coarse it is
--why, Judge, I haven't seen you since you left the bench which you
graced so admirably," etc, etc.; watching, too, Ruth and Jack as
they stood beneath a bower of arching roses--(Miss Felicia had put
it together with her own hands)--receiving the congratulations and
good wishes of those they knew and those they did not know; both
trying to remember the names of strangers; both laughing over
their mistakes, and both famished for just one kiss behind some
door or curtain where nobody could see.
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