It must be of course as a friend of yours." "It will not be as a friend of mine that he'll come; and it will not be to prove to me that I'm wrong that you'll ask him--but to prove it to yourself!" These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two presently separated) contained an amount of truth which Ralph Touchett was obliged to recognise; but it so far took the edge from too sharp a recognition that, in spite of his suspecting it would be rather more indiscreet to keep than to break his promise, he wrote Mr.Goodwood a note of six lines, expressing the pleasure it would give Mr.Touchett the elder that he should join a little party at Gardencourt, of which Miss Stackpole was a valued member.

Having sent his letter (to the care of a banker whom Henrietta suggested) he waited in some suspense.

He had heard this fresh formidable figure named for the first time; for when his mother had mentioned on her arrival that there was a story about the girl's having an "admirer" at home, the idea had seemed deficient in reality and he had taken no pains to ask questions the answers to which would involve only the vague or the disagreeable.

Now, however, the native admiration of which his cousin was the object had become more concrete; it took the form of a young man who had followed her to London, who was interested in a cotton-mill and had manners in the most splendid of the American styles.

Ralph had two theories about this intervenes.