But it was not a worldly courage which was sustaining her. It was the spirit which had grown out of her afternoon of work.
She deliberately took her cane with her as she went down to dinner, although she felt that she could walk without it. She knew that Kate wanted the surprise to be complete.
With this end in view, she sat at the table until the footman announced Doctor Colfax, and then she allowed all the others to precede her.
"N-now wait until we have all had time to shake hands, and a-ask him how he enjoyed himself, and give him a chance to be disappointed or g-gloating, just as he feels, because y-you aren't down. Then y-you skate in and w-watch him drop! We'll have him a Christian Science practitioner b-before we are done with him!"
Carolina obeyed.
They were all there,--Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Kate, Cousin Lois, Doctor Colfax, and Noel St. Quentin, and all were under the impression that Carolina would never be able to walk without some slight support. So that, when she walked slowly through the door, taking her steps with great care, that she might more gloriously reflect the Light, a hush fell upon them all. They did not greet her. They rose to their feet and stood watching her in perfect silence, and it was not until Kate sobbed in her excitement that the spell was broken.
Noel St. Quentin bit his lips, and Doctor Colfax's face went from red to white in an emotion which no one could fathom. Was he chagrined to see the woman he loved cured? Did he grudge her healing at other hands than his?
They all began to speak at once. Only Mr. Howard, Kate's father, sat back and watched and listened.
Roscoe Howard was a remarkable man in many ways. He possessed a critical mind, large wealth, great depth of character, and a sureness and quickness of perception, which had all contributed to his success in life. He was a student, above all, of human nature, and he had insisted upon Kate's willing hospitality to her friend, partly from affection to the daughter of his old friend, Winchester Lee, and partly to see what effect such an avalanche of misfortunes would have upon the proud spirit and high-strung nature of Carolina. When he heard of her embrace of Christian Science, he became still more interested. He had once gone in to sit with her when her arm was bandaged from wounds from her own teeth in one of her fits of despairing rage.
Therefore, when he learned from his daughter that this was to be the girl's first appearance before her old friends, he could imagine the ordeal it would prove to her, and in his own mind he said: "Carolina will show us to-night whether she is The Lady or The Tiger!"