"Give me your rose, please, Sally; I don't know just why I want it, but I do. I never could see much sense in fellows wanting to hold on to things like this before."
Sally jumped up suddenly and the little rose fell to the ground.
"Please be careful, Dan, here comes Tante and she may see you. I don't know what she would think."
The girl's movement arrested Mrs. Burton's attention.
She was walking about in the silver night with Senator Graham, whom she had known many years before as a poor boy, with little education, with nearly every handicap, lack of family, of influence and position. He was now one of the distinguished men of the country.
"Is that you, Sally and Dan? May I speak to you? Anthony, go back to Betty and see that she rests for a few moments, she is the most tireless hostess in the world! Sally and Dan will escort me to the house if I am not able to walk the few yards alone. And will you tell Betty that if I disappear I have gone up to my own room. I shall listen to the music until the dancing ends and then go to bed. The boat goes back at midnight, so I suppose the dancing can't last much longer."
Mrs. Burton sat down in the hammock between Sally and Dan, slipping a hand into each of theirs.
Dan Webster was her nephew, the son of her twin sister and of the man who had been under the impression that he cared for her before his discovery that they were entirely unsuited, and that the sister, who was her opposite in everything save her personal appearance, was the real love of his life.[*]
[*] See "Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows."
Sally Ashton was the daughter of two friends of her girlhood.