“Ah, my dear, I met Mr. Marks, who persuaded me into having the Sewing Society, or something of that kind, with sponge-cake and cream, at our house next week, provided you do not object.” “Not at all; I told him I did not,” Edith replied, and the colonel continued: “Then, my daughter,” turning to Julia, “see that Mrs. Tiffe has everything in readiness.” Julia bowed, while Godfrey dropped his fork and almost hurrahed in his surprise. _He_ knew what a Church Sociable with sponge-cake and cream meant; he had attended more than one in Hampstead, and danced with every girl there, and every forlorn, neglected woman who wanted a partner, but he had never dreamed of bringing the mixed assemblage across that aristocratic threshold, and lo it was coming without his aid, and he was delighted, and he invited every man, woman and child in town, and came to me with a beaming face and told me the good news, and asked if I would play the piano for them, and said he would get two or three musicians to accompany me and have a “smashing time.” “It will be enough sight nicer than the party was,” he said to his sisters, when, on Sunday after the notice had been given out, they were discussing it and expressing their contempt for the whole thing. “Folks will enjoy themselves at a sociable; they always do, and they don’t get drunk either, as that puppy Tom Barton did, nor stay all night; they go home at a Christian hour. I know; I’ve been to them and it is great fun, I tell you. I mean to dance with Mrs. Vandeusenhisen, too, if she is here. You ought to see Widow Barringer and Nat. Allen. They take all the steps, and do not mince along as some girls I know of _They_ dance, I tell you.” “Oh, Godfrey, how can you talk and act so low,” Julia said; but before Godfrey could reply Edith joined the group, which in consequence was soon after broken up. The Sociable was much talked of in Hampstead, and everybody went, from Rosamond Barton and her brother Tom, down to Mrs. Vandeusenhisen, who entered through the kitchen; leading the twins, Godfrey Schuyler and Schuyler Godfrey. “They were so anxious to come to the doin’s and get some cream,” she said, “that she concluded to bring ’em, seein’ it was free and she had as good right there as the next one.” With the most intense disgust, bristling in her cap ribbons and every fold of her stiff silk dress, Mrs. Tiffe bowed and said: “You better sit here, until the ladies are ready to receive you. Miss Creighton and Miss Schuyler are not yet dressed.”