"I am Lynde Pyne. I have heard your name mentioned by my cousin as the private secretary of Mr. Pryor, of whom Miss Alice has made frequent mention in her letters. You must really excuse me, but your face is so strangely familiar to me, that I cannot recover from the surprise of it."
"Now that you speak of it, I remember seeing you on 'Change the other day. The day that Lake Shore took its great boom. Do you not recall it?"
"No!" shaking his head slowly, "it was not there. I did not see you there, but——"
The sentence was interrupted by the entrance of the girls. Introductions followed, and were barely completed, when the butler's announcement of dinner was made.
With a heart beating almost to suffocation, Lowell offered his arm to Miss Edith Pyne, and conducted her to the dining-room, seating her upon his right, while he occupied the host's position.
It placed him where every eye rested full upon him, and Alice cried gleefully:
"Is it not extraordinary? Look! Did you ever see so great a resemblance as that between Mr. Lowell and Edith?"
There was no need to call attention to it, for every one in the room had observed it before, but Lowell's face was crimson.
"You compliment me too highly, Miss Alice," he stammered. "No doubt that is where Mr. Pyne saw a resemblance in me to some one, if it is true."
But Pyne shook his head.