door bell, giving herself a hurried glance in the mirror and forcing a smile, Barbara reached the door just after her little Irish maid had opened it.

[9]

Standing outside were three persons, one of them an older woman in an exquisite costume of blue and silver, the colors of her eyes and hair, another a young girl of about sixteen and the third a young man.

“Oh, Sonya, I am so glad to see you. It has seemed such ages and so strange to think of you and Nona in Italy without the old group of Red Cross girls! But where is Nona? I thought she was to be with you.”

In the beginning of her speech, Barbara Thornton had taken her guest’s hand and kissed it with characteristic swiftness and sweetness. Now, before Sonya Valesky could reply to her, she had turned to her other visitors.

“Forgive me if I was rude. I am so glad to see you, although we have never met one another before, I am sure I know who you are. This is Bianca and this is[10] Mr. Navara. You see, I have had letters about both of you from Italy.”

[10]

And then Barbara led the way into her drawing-room, while Sonya explained.

“Nona will be here presently. She had to attend to some important business. I believe she wishes to stay after we have gone and talk the matter over with you, Barbara. I don’t like to tell you what it is, but I hope you will try to dissuade her.”

“Something about which you have tried and failed?” Barbara inquired. “Then I am sure I shall not be successful. You see, Eugenia always said that Nona was the most difficult of us all to influence because she seemed to be the gentlest.”

Barbara had seated herself at her tea table and was now trying to serve her guests; the maid had immediately brought in the ice, and cold and hot tea as well. Barbara wished that she had not so much to occupy her as she would like to have been able to devote more attention to studying her guests.

Bianca, the little Italian girl whom Sonya had brought home with her to the[11] United States as a protégée, Barbara found less interesting than Nona’s description of her had led one to expect. Bianca was very pretty, of a delicate, shell-like type that one would not expect in an Italian. At present she seemed either very shy and frightened, or else she was merely demure. Then Barbara 

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