They had not long to wait. They heard the elevator door slide softly open, and then the gentle swish of silken skirts. Luella looked around just in time to be recognized by young Mr. Grandon if he had not at that moment been placing a long white broadcloth coat about his mother’s shoulders. There were four in the party, and Luella’s heart sank. He would not be likely to ask another one. The young man and the gray-silk, thread-lace woman from the other dining-table were going with them, it appeared. Young Mr. Grandon helped the gray-silk lady down the steps while the handsome stranger walked by Mrs. Grandon. They did not look around at the people on the piazza¹ at all. Luella bit her lips in vexation.  
“For pity’s sake, Luella, don’t scowl² so,” whispered her mother; “they might look up yet and see you.”
 
This warning came just in time; for young Mr. Grandon just as he was about to start the car glanced up, and, catching³ Luella’s fixed⁴ gaze, gave[80] her a distant bow, which was followed by a courteous⁵ lifting of the stranger’s hat.
 
Aunt Crete was seated beside Mrs. Grandon in the back seat and beaming her joy quietly. She was secretly exulting⁶ that Luella and Carrie had not been in evidence yet. She felt that her joy was being lengthened⁷ by a few minutes more, for she could not get away from the fear that her sister and niece would spoil it all as soon as they appeared upon the scene.
 
“I thought Aunt Carrie and Luella would be tired after their all-day trip, and we wouldn’t disturb them to-night,” said Donald in a low tone, looking back to Aunt Crete as the car glided⁸ smoothly⁹ out from the shelter of the wide piazza.
 
Aunt Crete smiled happily back to Donald, and raised her eyes with a relieved glance toward the rows of people on the piazza. She had been afraid to look her fill before lest she should see Luella frowning at her somewhere; but evidently they had not got back yet, or perhaps had not finished their dinner.
 
As Aunt Crete raised her eyes, Luella and her mother looked down into her upturned face enviously¹¹, but Aunt Crete’s gaze had but just grazed them and fallen upon an old lady of stately mien[81] with white, fluffy¹² hair like her own, and a white crêpe de chine gown trimmed with much white lace. In deep satisfaction Aunt Crete reflected that, if Luella had aught to say against her aunt’s wearing modest white morning-gowns, she would cite this model, who was evidently an old aristocrat¹³ if one might judge by her jewels and her general make-up.
 
“Somewhere I’ve seen that woman with the gray silk!” exclaimed Luella’s mother suddenly as Aunt Crete swept by. “There’s something real familiar about the set of her shoulders. Look at the way she raises her hand to her face. My land! I believe she reminds me of your Aunt Crete!”
 
“Now, mother!” scorned Luella. “As if Aunt Crete could ever look like that! You must be crazy to see anything in such an elegant lady to remind you of poor old Aunt Crete. Why, ma, this woman is the real thing! Just see how her hair’s put up. Nobody but a French maid could get it like that. Imagine Aunt Crete with a French maid. O, I’d die laughing. She’s probably washing our country cousin’s supper dishes at this very minute. I wonder if her conscience doesn’t hurt her about my lavender organdie. Say,[82] ma, did you notice how graceful¹⁴ that handsome stranger was when he handed the ladies into the car? My, but I’d like to know him. I think Clarence Grandon is just a stuck-up prig.”
 
Her mother looked at her sharply.
 
“Luella, seems to me you change your mind a good deal. If I don’t make any mistake, you came down here so’s to be near him. What’s made you change your mind? He doesn’t seem to go with any other girls.”
 
“No, he just sticks by his mother every living minute,” sighed Luella unhappily. “I do wish I had that lavender organdie. I look better in that than anything else I’ve got. I declare I think Aunt Crete is real mean and selfish not to send it. I’m going in to see if the mail has come; and, if the organdie isn’t here, nor any word from Aunt Crete, I’m going to call her up on the telephone again.”
 
Luella vanished into the hotel office, and her mother sat and rocked with puckered¹⁵ brows. She very much desired a place in high society for Luella, but how to attain¹⁶ it was the problem. She had not been born for social climbing, and took hardly to it.
 
Meantime the motor-car rolled smoothly over[83] the perfect roads, keeping always that wonderful gleaming sea in sight; and Aunt Crete, serenely¹⁷ happy, beamed and nodded to the pleasant chat of Mrs. Grandon, and was so overpowered by her surroundings that she forgot to be overpowered by the grand Mrs. Grandon. As in a dream she heard the kindly¹⁸ tone, and responded mechanically to the questions about her journey and the weather in the city, and how lovely the sea was to-night; but, as she spoke¹⁹ the few words with her lips, her soul was singing, and the words of its song were these:
 
“Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody²⁰ seas?”
And it seemed to her as they glided along the palace-lined shore, with the rolling sea on one hand, and the beautiful people in their beautiful raiment at ease and happy on the other hand, that she was picked right up out of the hot little brick house in the narrow street, and put on a wonderfully flowery bed of ease, and was floating right into a heaven of which her precious Donald was a bright, particular angel. She forgot all about Luella and what she might say, and just enjoyed herself.
 
[84]
 
She even found herself telling the elegant Mrs. Grandon exactly how she made piccalilli, and her heart warmed to the other woman as she saw that she was really interested. She had never supposed, from the way in which Luella spoke of the Grandons, that they would even deign²¹ to eat such a common thing as a pickle²², let alone knowing anything about it. Aunt Crete’s decision was that Mrs. Grandon wasn’t stuck up in the least, but just a nice, common lady like any one; and, as she went up in the elevator beside her, and said good-night, she felt as if she had known her all her life.
 
It was not until she had turned out her light and crept into the great hotel bed that it came to her to wonder whether Luella and Carrie could be meant by the ones in the hymn²³,
 
“While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas.”
She couldn’t help feeling that perhaps she had been selfish in enjoying her day so much when for aught she knew Luella might not be having a good time. For Luella not to have a good time meant blame for her aunt generally. Ever since Luella had been born it had been borne in upon Aunt Crete that there was a moral obligation upon her to make Luella have a good time. And now Aunt[85] Crete was having a good time, the time of her life; and she hugged herself, she was so happy over it, and thought of the dear stars out there in the deep, dark blue of the arching sky, and the cool, dark roll of the white-tipped waves, and was thankful.
 
Luella and her mother had gloomily watched the dancing through the open windows of the ballroom²⁴; but, as they knew no one inside, they did not venture in. Luella kept one eye out for the return of the car, but somehow missed it, and finally retired²⁵ to the solace²⁶ of cold-cream and the comforts of the fourth floor back, where lingered in the atmosphere a reminder²⁷ of the dinner past and a hint of the breakfast that was to come.
 
As the elevator ascended²⁸ past the second floor, the door of one of the special apartments stood wide, revealing a glimpse of the handsome young stranger standing²⁹ under the chandelier reading a letter, his face alive with pleasure. Luella sighed enviously, and in her dreams strove vainly to enter into the charmed circle where these favored beings moved, and knew not that of her own free will she had closed the door to that very special apartment, which might have been hers but for her own action.
 
The next morning Luella was twisting her neck[86] in a vain endeavor to set the string of artificial puffs³⁰ straight upon the enormous cushion of her hair, till they looked for all the world like a pan of rolls just out of the oven. She had jerked them off four separate times, and pulled the rest of her hair down twice in a vain attempt to get just the desired effect; and her patience, never very great at any time, was well-nigh exhausted³¹. Her mother was fretting³² because the best pieces of fish and all the hot rolls would be gone before they got down to breakfast, and Luella was snapping back in most undaughterly fashion, when a noticeable tap came on the door. It was not the tap of the chambermaid of the fourth floor back, nor of the elevator boy, who knew how to modulate³³ his knock for every grade of room from the second story, ocean front, up and back. It was a knock of rare condescension³⁴, mingled³⁵ with a call to attention; and it warned these favored occupants of room 410 to sit up and take notice, not that they were worthy³⁶ of any such consideration as was about to fall upon them.
 
Luella drove the last hairpin³⁷ into the puffs, and sprang to the door just as her mother opened it. She felt something was about to happen. Could it[87] be that she was to be invited to ride in that automobile³⁸ at last, or what?
 
There in the hall, looking very much out of place, and as if he hoped his condescension would be appreci............