"Grace," said Dolly to the blue-eyed girl, "I want you to meet Mrs. MacBirney. This is my niece, Grace De Castro."
The young girl looked with pretty expectancy into Alice’s face, and frankly held out her hand.
"Oh, what a bloom!" exclaimed Alice, looking at the delicate features and transparent skin. Grace laughed happily. Alice kept her hand a moment: "You are like a bit of morning come to life, Grace."
"And this is my cousin, Mrs. MacBirney--Mr. Morgan," said Grace shyly.
Larrie Morgan, a bit self-conscious, stood for an instant aloof. Alice said nothing, but her eyes in the interval worked their spell. He suddenly smiled.
"I’m mightily pleased to meet you, Mrs. MacBirney," he exclaimed with heartiness. "We’ve all heard about you. Is Mr. MacBirney here?" he continued, tendering the biggest compliment he could think of.
"We shall lose our waltz, Mrs. MacBirney," urged Arthur De Castro.
"Oh, we mustn’t do that. Let’s run," whispered Alice, taking his arm.
"Who is Mrs. MacBirney?" asked Grace of Larrie with an appealing look as Alice moved away.
"Why, don’t you know? Her husband owns some beet plants."
"What lovely manners she has." Grace spoke under her breath. "And so quiet. Where are their refineries, Larrie?"
"Somewhere out toward the Rocky Mountains," hazarded Larrie.
"I fancy that’s it. Anyway," explained Larrie coldly, "we are buying them."
"Are you?" asked Grace, lifting her soft eyes timidly.
To her, Larrie was the entire Kimberly sugar interest; and at the moment of making the MacBirney purchase he looked, to Grace, the part.
Edward Nelson, the counsel, in some measure the political adviser and, as to the public, the buffer of the Kimberly sugar interests, was fond of entertaining. Being naturally an amiable gourmet, his interests suited his tastes. Moreover, his wife, Lottie Nelson, pleasing of face, with a figure well proportioned and with distinction in her bright, indolent eyes, loved to entertain. And she loved to entertain without working hard to do so. Morningside, her country home at Second Lake, though both attractive and spacious, and designed with a view to entertaining, was already being replaced with a new home more attractive and more spacious, and meant to be filled with still more guests.