Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/100

 even Miss Bigley not being too dignified to hope she might ride in the closed sleigh with the dashing Captain. The two Scollays succeeded. They were pretty girls who seemed to have no jealousies towards each other. Lanice found them attractive and wished that she could know them. In the end Lanice and Miss Bigley rode to the lecture with Professor Ripley, who was second in command under Miss Bigley. Lanice withdrew to a dark corner of the hack and felt sad. Miss Bigley began to chatter about the duties of woman and the sanctity of the home. Sears Ripley, almost invisible, relaxed into sadness, but the occasional contact with his knees subtly comforted the younger woman. So they drove to Tremont Temple.

All during the evening, when Lanice had finished her rather nominal duties as usher, Ripley devoted himself to her. His eyes caressed her in a friendly fashion. Boston had accepted the occasion as one of distinction, meriting best black silks, real laces, and, in the case of the younger and more frivolous women, of voluminous flower-colored evening dresses trimmed with garlands of velvet and silver gauze flowers. The ten daily newspapers on the following morning referred to the lecture as a great social event unrivalled since the pure and lovely Jenny Lind had sung to Boston. The ushers were pronounced to be 'enchanting,' 'the loveliest of houris,' who combined the charms of the desert and of Boston. 'Many and