"I don't know, Ben, not your flesh and blood, certainly."
"But for President—why wasn't my father hanged before he gave him such a name!—she would have remained ignorant and common with all her beauty. He almost starved himself in order to send her to a good school and give her pretty clothes."
"I know, I know, it seems terribly ungrateful—but perhaps she's excited over her first dinner."
That evening we were to give our first formal dinner, and when I came downstairs a little before eight o'clock, I found the rooms a bower of azaleas, over which the pink-shaded lamps shed a light that touched Jessy's lace gown with pale rose.
"It's like fairyland, isn't it?" she said, "and the table is so beautiful. Come and see the table."
She led me into the dining-room and we stood gazing down on the decorations, while we waited for Sally.
"Who is coming, Jessy?"
"Twelve in all. General Bolingbroke and Mr. Bolingbroke, Mrs. Fitzhugh, Governor Blenner, Miss Page," she went on reading the cards, "Mr. Mason, Miss Watson, Colonel Henry, Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Tyler—"
"That will do. I'll know them when I see them. Do you like it, Jessy?"
"Yes, I like it. Isn't my dress lovely?"