At the door Leon, after welcoming Edna and Bruce with a handshake, turned to their children-grandchildren with a smile that was especially gentle as it met Annabel’s eyes. Annabel was fifteen, and the year’s seniority she enjoyed over her sister Doreen showed the difference between child and young woman. Doreen was all jutting angles; Annabel was circles and curves. Adam, who did not much like Leon, watched Annabel smile at the older man like a bud becoming blossom. As James dutifully helped Doreen out of her jacket, Adam assisted Annabel more roughly in removing hers, both of them perfectly aware of the reason.

“How beautiful it all is!” Annabel exclaimed to repair the awkwardness of the moment, and the whole party turned faces to look at the way the great hall had been arranged for the evening. Flanking its long sides were chairs of all descriptions and degrees of comfort, with scarce an inch between them when not indeed touching. Here and there the line of chairs was broken by stands of Boston fern, the ferns having been washed to look fresher, and the stands sashed in broad bands of colored silks tied with elaborate bows. Large branches of dark-brown limbed and dark-green leaved magnolia were set in tin tubs that had been tinseled over and gave back the light of two hundred candles that brightened the hall for the dancing to come.

“Yes, it’s pretty!” Edna said and squeezed Sarah’s hand just as Annabel decided to clap hers together like a delighted princess. Adam scowled ironically as Leon smiled appreciation at the girl. Turning her head and seeing what guests had arrived, Rachel left the musicians, whose place was at the breezeway end of the hall. The double doors to the open-sided passage leading to the kitchen wing had been closed for the evening until fresh air was needed. With the spontaneity permitted pre-adolescent girls, Rachel ran to the party to give them her own welcome. As she ran, the musicians began to play Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes. Bruce offered his arm to Sarah, and they promenaded down the hall toward the musicians’ stand, followed by Leon who had given one arm to Edna and the other to Annabel, who had only just put her tongue back into her mouth after sticking it out at Adam. Taking Leon’s arm, she smiled as though she had never known cruder company than that of angels. James and Doreen brought up the rear in a willing but sloppy way, James squirming in the tight collar he hated, and Doreen scratching her behind that suddenly itched. She had fought against woolen drawers, begging to be allowed to leave them off for just that evening, but Edna had told her sharply that she’d rather see her suffer discomfort now than suffer later with a chill and fever.