One evening Professor Thorpe, after his weekly supper at Storm, followed her into her office with an air of mingled embarra.s.sment and importance.

"Oh, dear!" she thought. "It's coming again."

But she was mistaken. He had a proposal of another sort to make; in fact an announcement.

"I am about to give an entertainment," he said, clearing his throat. "A party. A dancing party."

She looked at him in amazement. "You? A dancing party?"

"Why not? It is to be for your girls, and I shall expect you to chaperon it."

She threw back her head and laughed aloud. "Dear old Jim! I should be as much out of place in a ballroom now as--as a plow horse. But the girls will be overjoyed. How did you happen to evolve such an idea?"

"I didn't. It--er--was evolved for me. Jemima--"

Kate sobered. "I might have known it, Jim! I cannot have you so imposed upon. You must not undertake such a thing."

"But I wish to," he insisted stoutly. "I am very much obliged to Jemima for thinking of it. It is quite true, as she says, that I am under obligation to many people who have been most kind to me. It is true also that I have joined a country club, more by way of encouraging an infant--er--industry than with any idea of pleasure to myself. But, as Jemima says, when one joins a club one should patronize it. She tells me that it will be quite possible to make a dancing man of me with a few weeks' practice, and that in her opinion exercise and young society are what is needed to--er--to round out my individuality. Jemima is doubtless right--she usually is. So I shall issue invitations to a dancing party at the Country Club, preceded by dinner, as is customary."

Kate laughed again, but with dim eyes. The stanch devotion of this gentle, kindly scholar was a thing she found very touching. "Dear old Slow-poke!"--she used the name she and her livelier companions had given him in the days when he was the dull and quiet one among her followers. "So you are going to play sponsor to my children once more!"

Both fell silent, remembering the day when he had followed her down the aisle of the church that meant home to her, under the blank, icy stare of an entire congregation. He lifted her hand to his lips.

"Jim, I am afraid," she said suddenly. "Women--you know how cruel they can be! Suppose they choose to punish my children for my sins?" With a fierce upwelling of the maternal instinct, she dreaded to let her young go out of her own protection, out of the safe obscurity she had made for them.

He rea.s.sured her as best he could, reminding her of the years that had pa.s.sed, and of her daughters' charm. "Why, those girls would bring their own welcome anywhere! They are exquisite."

"You are prejudiced, Jim, dear."

He admitted it without shame. "But those young men I brought here to supper--they are not prejudiced, Kate, and I a.s.sure you they dog my footsteps begging to be brought again."

"Oh, men!--I am never afraid of men. It is the women I dread."

"Then we won't have any women," cried the Professor.

Kate smiled. "Oh, yes, you will! Jemima has read about chaperons in novels. She'll see to that."

"Wouldn't I be a sufficient chaperon?"

"You can't be a chaperon and a dancing man as well," she teased him.

"Take your choice. Oh, I foresee a strenuous career ahead of you, my friend! Think of the invitations, and the decorations, and the favors, and the menu!"

"I had not thought of it in detail," admitted the Professor, rather nervously. "You--you alarm me. Still, I shall go through with it."

"You will indeed, with Jemima at the helm," she murmured. "You poor lamb! Perhaps the famous nephew will be of some a.s.sistance? I dare say he knows a good deal about b.a.l.l.s, and things of that sort."

"Unfortunately, J. Percival is no longer my guest"--the Professor spoke a little stiffly. "At present he is visiting your neighbor Mr. Farwell, at Holiday Hill--an old acquaintance, I understand. You have seen nothing of him?"

She shook her head. "We do not know Mr. Farwell, and we are rather simple folk to appeal to the literary palate."

"Humph!" said the other dubiously. "I should not call Jemima, for instance, exactly a simple person. Look out for him, Kate!"

She raised her eyebrows. "You speak as if your famous nephew were a ravening wild wolf, Jim!"

"He's worse--He's a--temperamentalist," said the other, grimly. It was not the word he had started to use.

CHAPTER XX

The old hall of Storm, with its memories of many a wild festivity, had never served as background for a prettier sight than Jemima and Jacqueline Kildare, coming shyly down the steps in their first ball-dresses, followed by a girl in gingham, equally young and pretty, with an anxious proprietary eye upon the hang and set of their fineries.

"Don't you hug 'em, please, Miss Kate," warned this girl as they descended. "Tulle musses so easy."

There was a long "A-ah!" of delight from the foot of the stairs, where the entire household was a.s.sembled, to the youngest pickaninny from the quarters. Jemima, exquisite and fragile as a snow-spirit in her white tulle, descended with the queenly stateliness that seems possible only to very small women; but Jacqueline, pink as a rose, flushed and dewy as if she had just been plucked from the garden, took the final steps with a run and landed in her mother's arms, despite Mag's warning.

"Aren't we perfectly grand?" she demanded. "Did you ever see _anything_ as beautiful as us? See my gloves--almost as long as my arms! And my neck doesn't look so awfully bony, does it? There's lots of it, anyway, and it's white." She inflated her chest to full capacity, and looked around the circle for approval. Philip was there, as well as Professor Thorpe, who had come to fetch them in the Ark. Each had boxes in their hands.

"O-oh!" cried Jacqueline in delight. "Presents! What have you brought us?"

Professor Thorpe's boxes proved to contain flowers, and Philip presented to each of them a charming antique fan.

"Why, Reverend! How did you know girls used such things? It must be your French blood cropping out."

"I found them among mother's things," he explained, "and I knew she would like you to have them."

The girl sobered, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Jemima thanked him quietly, and laid her fan on a table. Philip and Kate exchanged a quick glance of understanding. It was evident that she meant to accept nothing from a Benoix. Young Jemima Kildare was of the stuff that makes the Kentucky blood-feuds possible.

There was an awkward pause, broken by Professor Thorpe. "We ought to be starting, I think. The Ark, while willing, has its little weaknesses, and it would not do for my guests to arrive and find neither host nor guests of honor present."

"Wait a moment," said Kate. "I, too, have presentations to make."

She produced two white velvet boxes bearing the name of a famous New York jeweler.

"Oh, what pretty little pinky-white beads!" cried Jacqueline, clasping hers about her throat and prancing to a mirror to observe the effect.

Jemima examined hers, and then looked quickly at her mother.

"Are they pearls?" she asked.

"Yes," said Kate. "Small ones, but a good investment, I think. Some day when you're older, girlies, perhaps you'll like to remember that your mother earned the money that bought them." She spoke to both of them, but it was to Jemima that her unconscious plea was made.

The older girl hesitated. Then she murmured, "Thank you, Mother. They are beautiful," and fastened them about her throat.

Kate gave a little sigh of relief, echoed by James Thorpe. Both had feared for a moment that she would refuse her mother's gift as she had refused Philip's.

"Come, come," said Professor Thorpe, "we really must start. Two hours'