Excerpt: ...and he would see to the wine; all he wanted was the privilege of asking some of his own friends. The invitations were out late, as there had been a delay in the engraving; Dosia looked at her own name on them, and tried to realize that this was indeed what Mr. Leverich called "her party." He had insisted, at his wife's suggestion, in presenting Dosia with her gown for the occasion, and had been pleased with her pretty thanks for his kindness. There was something about Mr. Leverich, with all his outer coarseness, that Dosia liked. When she spoke in a certain way, he never answered wrong, as his wife sometimes did; he understood. 187 Not since the night of the barge-ride had Dosia seen her lover. After her first disquiet and wonder at not seeing him at the breakfast to which she came down very late the next morning, she was relieved to hear that he had suddenly been called away earlier. He might not be back for a day or two. She longed to question more, but could not bring herself to do it, and his absence seemed to be taken as a matter of course by everyone else. But there had been a note from him, after the two days were up, postmarked from the city-a mere line that said only, "For the girl I love." "Will your brother be back for the party?" she asked Mrs. Leverich, trying to keep her color steady and ask the question casually. "Oh, yes, indeed," the sister answered readily. "He may be back at any minute now. He'll be here on the day itself, for certain; he knows I want his help about some things." Without Lawson's actual presence Dosia could fashion him into the man she loved, and pitch her own key of living higher. With that higher thought and her simple earnestness of purpose, she grew sweeter, dearer, more subtly sympathetic with others; she was no girl any longer, she said to herself, but a woman, for she was loved. How would his eyes claim hers when he came? Her cheeks mantled at the thought. There was a strange...