"Well, it would be just as bad if he scolded her." "How good you are!" cried the widow. "You are just the dearest thing in the world." "Of course I am; but there's no use in standing here to say pretty things to each other, for there is no one to hear." "Oh, you odd creature!" laughed Mrs. Harrington. "But, really, that man was the strangest, fascinating person--" "There you go!" interrupted Elsie angrily. "My dear, there is no one in the room but ourselves." "I don't care if there is not; I don't want to hear that man's name." "I can't see why you dislike him so," pursued the widow. "It always seemed to me that he and Elizabeth treated each other oddly--" Elsie interrupted her, quite pale with anger. "Mary Harrington," said she, "if you and I are to remain friends, stop this instant. I won't hear another word, nor must the subject come up again." Mrs. Harrington was quite subdued by her friend's vehemence, and dropped the matter without another allusion to the forbidden subject. When they went downstairs after the rest of the party were assembled, Mellen began laughing at the widow about the conquest she had made of Mr. Rhodes. "Isn't it delicious?" she cried. "I just want you to see us together--it is better than a play." "And Jemima's spite is something to witness," added Elsie. "I know she will poison you yet, Mary Harrington." "I am on the watch constantly," replied the widow. "I don't even engage a strange servant now for fear it should be one of the old maid's secret emissaries." "You are as badly off as the Duke of Buckingham," said Mellen, laughing at Mrs. Harrington's pretended distress. "It is dreadful, I assure you," she said, shaking her plumage of lace and gauze; "but it is very amusing, nevertheless." "Of course, if you can annoy somebody," answered Mellen; "that is the very acme of female happiness." "Oh, you barbarous creature!" cried the widow. "Ain't you ashamed to utter such atrocious sentiments! Mrs. Mellen, your husband has come back a perfect savage." Everybody laughed--it never occurred to the widow it could be at her own airs and affectations, which were a very clumsy imitation of Elsie's childish grace; she was too thoroughly satisfied with her own powers of fascination to suppose it possible, even for an instant, that she could become a subject of amusement. "After all, it is tiresome to inspire a _grande passion_," said she, with a theatrical drawl. "No woman ought to be better able to decide," cried Elsie; "you have made enough in all conscience." "Oh, dear, no!" said the widow. "Don't deny it," said Elsie, who never scrupled to make sport of her most intimate friends, and with all her fondness for Mrs. Harrington was always leading her on to do and say the most absurd things.