He gazed at her questioningly, gradually feeling a load leave him, a load that he did not know he carried. Hazel was speaking:
"Julia had a habit of juggling with bankers' hearts. She's married now, you know."
CHAPTER XVIII.
IN THE COUNTRY OF OUR COUSINS.
Hall's lawn was decorated with Japanese lanterns. The little Mt. Alban boys who passed in the dusk wondered if the time would ever come in their lives when they should be eligible for a real garden-party. Such a wondrous condition seemed very far off, like Heaven. And the little girls who passed peeked through the hedge, like fairies seeking admittance to a nymph gathering. There was no music as yet, for the evening had scarcely set in, but the tables were set and the lanterns threw a glimmer over the flower-beds and through the trees.
The party was, ostensibly, a welcome to the newly-married couple, James and Julia Watersea Simpson; actually it was to announce that Miss Sadie Hall had returned from Hamilton to accept the boredom of Mt. Alban again for a little season.
It is not for this bank story to enter upon details of that garden party; to spy on the sons of villagers behind dark balsams devouring cigarettes borrowed from the village cut-up; to play dictagraph to the gossips, or to hang around where the girls are chattering. However, there were characters at that lawn social more or less concerned in our story, and of whom we therefore ought to make mention.
Those characters occupied a place of prominence at the function, being seated close to Miss Hall herself. She was paying them flattering attention.
"Mr. Perry," she said, smilingly, "who would have thought you were going to turn out such a sport?"