Edith awoke the next morning armoured for battle. I could see it in her eyes and feel it in her manner. I knew it was to be no slight skirmish, but a well-thought-out and carefully-planned campaign. I knew it was to be a serious engagement because neither she nor Ruth criticised a single thing for the next two days. If they were shocked and surprised, I knew it only by raised eyebrows, critical smiles or covert glances. I hated their silence. I felt as if the entire foundation of my life was stealthily being honeycombed with tunnels, laid with bombs and dynamite, and I wondered a little uncomfortably when Edith would light the fuse. Edith is wonderful in some ways, as you know. At a hotel or on a steamer she catches on to the right people to know within the first twenty-four hours, and by the third day she's playing bridge with them. As soon as ever her half-dozen pieces of baggage had arrived, she donned a Paquin three-piece velvet suit and set out to call on Mrs. Percival. That night the explosion took place. "I called on Mrs. Percival this afternoon," she began after dinner. "She says, Lucy, that you never returned her call." Will had gone to a lecture that evening. Ruth was playing solitaire in front of the fire. "Has Mrs. Percival called on me? I didn't realise it," I replied. "Not only has Mrs. Percival called, but every one else who should. That impossible servant of yours said that all these people had called." Edith took down the brass jardinière where I deposit all my visiting-cards. "She said that you were never in afternoons and had not seen _one_ of them. Where under the heavens were you, Lucy?" I felt ashamed to tell Edith about the lectures, so I said instead: "Oh, anywhere--walking, shopping--_anywhere_. I never stay in afternoons. I can't bear to." "How many of those calls have you returned?" cross-examined my sister-in-law. "Well--I am _going_ to return them all," I began. "They're such strangers to me that I've been putting it off. You know how I hate making calls anyway. But of course--" Edith interrupted me. "_The_ people in this town are the ones connected with the university. I have always heard that. You've had every opportunity to know them. They've all called on account of Will. You've simply thrown away chance upon chance. Here are the Philemon Omsteds' cards. Mrs. Percival says that Dr. Omsted is awfully queer--kind of a socialist--but that Mrs. Omsted's musicales are the selectest things given. Here are Mrs. Daniel Haynes McClellan's cards, the Bernkapps, Madame Gauthier. I found out from Mrs. Percival, indirectly of course, that all these people are _in_ things. Mrs. Benedict Graham--even _she_ has called on you. And Mrs. Percival says that _she_ was a Granville--daughter of President Emeritus Granville. Dr. Graham is an awfully prominent man himself. Surely you've heard of Benedict Graham, Lucy. Surely--"