By itself an occurrence like this would have been unnerving enough. Visitors on the afternoon of a party, and such visitors! But that the Leightons should all be more or less in a pickle in regard to the mayonnaise and Lance's foolery seemed to take things altogether over the barrier of ordinary life, and land everybody in a perfect fizzle. The Dudgeons must have called to see Cuthbert, who had never been down yet on these occasions when Mrs. Leighton and Mabel and Jean with perfect propriety had received them. Mabel had had her innings as the eldest of the house, but had retained an enormous reserve when speaking to Miss Dudgeon. Not so Jean, who believed in getting to know people at once. Elma and Betty had never ventured near them since that dreadful day when they all did the wrong thing at the wrong moment.

"Anyhow, the drawing-room is a perfect dream with flowers. They can look at that for a bit," said Jean, as they began to remove the regiment of bottles. Dr. Harry's mayonnaise was creamy and perfect, and Mabel was in high fettle correspondingly.

"Do you know," she said, "I don't care tuppence for the Dudgeons just now. Let's go in and give them a decent reception for once." It reflected the feeling of all, that nothing could disturb their gaiety on this day.

Elma was reminded again how right her father was in declaring that once one had an absorbing object in front of one, trifles dwindled down to their proper level. Why should any of them be afraid of the Story Books? Certainly not at all, on a day when they were about to have a ripping party, and the mayonnaise at last had "mayed." Cuthbert gave a big jolly laugh at Mabel's speech.

"Come along, all of you," he said. "What about those oily fingers of yours, Harry? What a jewel of a husband you'll be! You, Lance, get off these togs and behave yourself."

Lance promised abjectly to be an ornament to the household for the rest of the afternoon. Something in his look as he went off reminded Mabel of other promises of Lance.

"Be good," she called out to him.

"Yes, mother," exclaimed Lance, evidently at work already tearing off the skirt, and looking demure and mournful. He seemed very ridiculous still, and they went off merrily to the drawing-room.

"Cuthbert," whispered Elma, "I'm so frightened. Take me in."

"I'm frightened too," whispered Cuthbert.

This made her laugh, so that as she held on to his arm she approached Adelaide Maud in admirable spirits. The party invaded the drawing-room as a flood would invade it--or so it seemed to the Dudgeons, who were talking quietly to Mrs. Leighton. The whole room sprouted Leightons. Mrs. Dudgeon resorted entirely to her lorgnette, especially when she shook hands with Cuthbert. He stood that ordeal bravely, also the ordeal of the speech that followed.

"You see the two very shy members of the family," he said, bowing gravely and disregarding some sarcastic laughter from the background. "May I introduce my young sister Elma."

Here was honour for Elma. She shook hands with crimson cheeks. Then came Adelaide Maud. She gave her hand to Cuthbert without a word, but when Elma's turn came she said with rather sweet gravity, "This is the little lady, isn't it, who plays to Miss Grace?"

Elma was thunderstruck; but Cuthbert, the magnificent, seemed very pleased.

"Oh--Miss Grace didn't tell you?" asked Elma.

"No, I heard you one day, and Miss Annie told me it was you."

Adelaide Maud sat down on a low chair, and drew Elma on to the arm.

"What was it you were playing?" she asked.

"One is called 'Anything you like,' and one is 'A little thing of my own,' and the others are just anything," said Elma.

Adelaide Maud laughed.

The room was filled with chattering voices, and Mrs. Dudgeon had claimed Cuthbert, so that it became a very easy thing for them to be confidential without any one's noticing.

"It's quite stup--stup----" Elma stopped.

"Stupid?" asked Adelaide Maud.

"No, stup-endous," said Elma thankfully, "for me to be talking all alone with you." Her fright had run away, as it always did whenever any one looked kindly at her. The sweet eyes of Adelaide Maud disarmed her, and she worshipped on the spot. "I've always been so afraid of you," she said simply. "It ought to be Hermione, but I know it will always be you."

"Who is Hermione?" asked Adelaide Maud.

Elma suddenly woke up.

"Oh, I daren't tell you," said she.

Adelaide Maud looked about her in a constrained way.

"I wish you would play to me, dear," she said.

Was this really to be believed!

"I could in the schoolroom," said Elma, "but not here."

"Take me to the schoolroom," said Adelaide Maud.

Elma placed her hand in that of the other delicately gloved one without a tremor.

"Don't let them see us go," she begged.

Three people did, however: Cuthbert with a bounding heart, Mabel with thankfulness that the house was really in exhibition order, and Jean with blank amazement. Elma had walked off in ten minutes intimately with the flower that Jean had, as it were, been tending carefully for weeks, and had not dared to pluck. There was something of the dark horse about Elma.

They were much taken up with Miss Steven however. She was very fair and petite, and had pretty ways of curving herself and throwing back her head, and of spreading her hands when she talked. She seemed to like to have the eyes of the room fixed on her. Quite different from the Dudgeons, who in about two ticks stared one out of looking at them at all. Mr. Leighton came in also, and what might be called her last thaw was undergone by Mrs. Dudgeon in the pleasure of meeting him. If she had her ideas on beaded cushions, she had certainly no objections to Mr. Leighton. In five minutes he was explaining to her that sea trout are to be discovered in fresh water lakes at certain seasons of the year.

Unfortunately, just then Mrs. Dudgeon happened to look out of the windows. There were three long ones, and each opened out on that sunny day to the lawn at the side of the house. If Mrs. Dudgeon had kept her eye on the Louis Seize clock or the famous Monticelli, all might have gone well, but she preferred to look out of the window. In spite of the general hilarity of the party around her, her action in looking out seemed to impress them all. Everybody except Mr. Leighton looked out also, and then came an ominous silence.

Mr. Maclean giggled.

This formed a link to a burst of conversation. Jean turned to Miss Steven and engaged her in a whirlwind of talk. Cuthbert vainly endeavoured to move the stony glance of Mrs. Dudgeon once more in the direction of his father. Dr. Harry wildly asked Mabel to play something.

Mabel never forgave him.

Mrs. Dudgeon immediately became preternaturally polite, said she had often heard of the musical proclivities of the Misses Leighton, and Mabel had really to play.

"Oh, Harry," she exclaimed, "I never played with a burden like this on my mind, never in all my life. The party to-night--and that mayonnaise (it will keep maying, won't it?)--and Elma goodness knows where with Adelaide Maud, and those kids in the garden--couldn't Cuthbert go and slay them?"

She dashed into a Chopin polonaise.

The kids in the garden were what had upset Mrs. Dudgeon. There were two--evidently playing "catch me if you can" with one of the maid-servants--the one who had shown them in. She rushed about in a manner which looked very mad. This exhibition on the drawing-room side of the house! Really--these middle class people!

Mrs. Dudgeon extended the lorgnette to looking at them once more.

A horizontal bar was erected in a corner of the lawn. Towards this the eccentric maid-servant seemed to be making determined passes, frantically prevented every now and again by the two young girls. The chords of the "railway polonaise" hammered out a violent accompaniment. Mabel could play magnificently when in a rage. Little Miss Steven was enchanted.

Nearer came the maid-servant to the horizontal bar. At last she reached it. May and Betty sat down plump on the lawn in silent despair. Lance pulled himself gently and gracefully up. Not content with getting there, he kissed his hand to the unresponsive drawing-room windows. To do him justice, there was little sign for him that any one saw him, and Mabel's piano playing seemed to envelop everything. He did some graceful things towards the end of the polonaise, but with the last chords became violently mischievous again. With a wild whirl he turned a partial somersault. Mrs. Dudgeon shrieked. "Oh, that woman," said she. Just then Lance stopped his whirlings and sent his feet straight into the air. His skirts fell gracefully over his face. Dr. Harry laughed a loud laugh, and at last Mr. Leighton asked what was the matter.

"It's Lance," said Jean. "He has been playing tricks all the afternoon."

Everything might have been forgiven except that Mrs. Dudgeon had been taken in. She had screamed, "That woman."

She began to look about for Adelaide Maud.

"Will you be so kind as to tell my daughter that we must be going," she said to Mr. Leighton.

Cuthbert volunteered to look for her.

Dr. Harry really did the neat thing. He went out for Lance and brought him in with Betty and May. He hauled Lance by the ear to Mrs. Dudgeon.

"Here you see a culprit of the deepest dye."

Lance looked very rosy and mischievous, and Miss Steven, who had been immersed in hysterical laughter since his exploit on the bar, was delighted with him.

"I am so sorry," said Lance gravely, encouraged by this appreciation, "but I promised mother that I should be an ornament to the company this afternoon."

"Oh, Lance," said May, "how can you!"

"By 'mother,' of course I mean Mabel," said Lance to Mrs. Dudgeon in an explanatory fashion. "She has grown so cocky since she put her hair up."

Mrs. Dudgeon determined to give up trying to unravel the middle classes.

Mr. Maclean broke in. "Everybody spoils Lance, Mrs. Dudgeon. It isn't quite his own fault; look at Miss Steven."

Miss Steven, always prompt to appreciate a person's wickedest mood, had made an immediate friend of Lance.

"They are a great trial to us, these young people," said Mr. Leighton gently.

The speech wafted her back to her gracious mood, and for a little while longer she forgot that she had sent for Adelaide Maud.

Meanwhile Cuthbert endeavoured to discover what had happened to that "delicious" person.

With swishing skirts, and gleam of golden hair under a white hat, Elma had seen herself escort Adelaide Maud from the drawing-room to the schoolroom. Adelaide Maud sat on a hassock in the room where "You don't mean to say you were all babies," and Elma played "Anything you like" to her.

Adelaide Maud's face became of the dreamy far-away consistency of Miss Grace's--without the cap, and Elma felt her cup of happiness run over.

"Does your sister play like that?" asked Adelaide Maud.

"Far better," said Elma simply.

They heard the bars of the railway polonaise, and the schoolroom, being just over the drawing-room, they had also the full benefit of Lance's exploit.

Adelaide Maud laughed and laughed.

"Oh, what will Mrs. Dudgeon say?" asked Elma.

She told Adelaide Maud about the party, a frightful "breach of etiquette," as Mabel informed her later. Adelaide Maud's face grew serious and rather sad.

"What a pity you live in another ph--phrase of society," sighed Elma, "or you would be coming too, wouldn't you?"

"Would you really ask me?" asked Adelaide Maud.

Ask her?

Did Adelaide Maud think that if the world were made of gold and one could help one's self to it, one wouldn't have a little piece now and again! She was just about to explain that they would do anything in the world to ask her, when Cuthbert came into the room. Adelaide Maud got so stiff at that moment, that immediately Elma understood that it would never do to ask her to the party.

Cuthbert explained that Mrs. Dudgeon had sent him to fetch Miss Dudgeon.

"Oh," said Adelaide Maud.

She did not make the slightest move towards leaving, however.

She looked straight at Cuthbert, and Elma could have sworn she saw her lip quiver.

"I believe I have to apologize to you," she said in a very cold voice. "I cut out a dance, didn't I--at the Calthorps'!"

"Did you?" asked Cuthbert.

Elma wondered that he could be so negligent in speaking to Adelaide Maud. She never could bear to see Cuthbert severe, and it had the effect of terrifying her a trifle and making her take the hand of Adelaide Maud in a defensive sort of manner.

Adelaide Maud held her hand quite tightly, as though Elma were really a friend of some standing.

"I didn't intend to, but I know it seemed like it," said Adelaide Maud in perfectly freezing tones.

Cuthbert looked at her very directly, and seemed to answer the freezing side more than the apologizing one.

"Oh--a small thing of that sort, what does it matter"? he said grandly.

Adelaide Maud turned quite pale.

"Thank you," said she. "It's quite sweet of you to take it like that," and she marched out of the schoolroom with her skirts swishing and her head high. No--it would never do to invite Adelaide Maud to the party.

Elma however had seen another side to this very dignified lady, and so ran after her and took her hand again.

"You aren't vexed with me, are you?" she whispered.

Adelaide Maud at the turn of the stairs, and just at the point where Cuthbert, coming savagely behind, could not see, bent and kissed Elma.

"What day do you go to Miss Grace's?" she asked.

"To-morrow at three," whispered Elma, with her plans quite suddenly arranged.

"Don't tell," said Adelaide Maud, "I shall be there."

Mrs. Dudgeon departed with appropriate graciousness. The irrepressible gaiety of the company round her had merely served to make her more unapproachable. She greeted Adelaide Maud with a stare, and strove to make her immediate adieus. Mr. Maclean, always ready to notice a deficiency, remembered that Mr. Leighton had never met Adelaide Maud, and forthwith introduced her. Adelaide Maud took this introduction shyly, and Mr. Leighton was charmed with her. With an unfaltering estimate of character he appraised her then as being one in a hundred amongst girls. Adelaide Maud, on her part, showed him gentle little asides to her nature which one could not have believed existed. Mrs. Dudgeon grew really impatient at the constant interruptions which impeded her exit.

"Mr. Leighton has just been telling me," she said by way of getting out of the drawing-room, "that a little party is to be celebrated here to-night. I fear we detain you all." Nothing could have been more gracious--and yet! Mabel flushed. It seemed so like a children's affair--that they should be having a party, and that the really important people were actually clearing out in order to allow it to occur.

Miss Steven said farewell with real regret.

"I don't know when I have had such a jolly afternoon," she said. "I think I must get knocked over oftener. Though I don't want Mr. Leighton to break his ribs every time. Do you know," she said in a most heart-breaking manner, "I've been hardly able to breathe for thinking of it. You can't think how nice it is to see you all so jolly after all."

When they had got into the Dudgeons' carriage, and were rolling swiftly homewards, she yawned a trifle.

"What cures they are," she said airily.

Adelaide Maud, in her silent corner of the carriage, felt her third pang of that memorable afternoon.