_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Why, getting what you have to do by heart, and repeating it over. If you could _only_ bring yourself to say: _Both girls out; me alone with the children; Willis at ten; mustn't go to sleep; last half, anyway; Mrs. Miller awfully angry._ There! If you could say that after me, I could go feeling so _much_ easier! Won't you do it, Edward? I know it has a ridiculous sound, but--" _Roberts_, yawning: "How am I to dress?" _Mrs. Roberts:_ "Edward! Well, I always _will_ say that you're perfectly inspired! To think of my forgetting the most important thing, after all! Oh, I do believe there _is_ an overruling Providence, I don't _care_ what the agnostics pretend. Why, it's to be evening dress for the men, of course! Mrs. Miller would do it to be different from Mrs. Curwen, who let you come in your cutaways, even if it wasn't the regular thing; and she's gone around ever since saying it was the most rowdy, Bohemian thing she ever heard of, and she might as well have had beer, at once." _Roberts:_ "Who?" _Mrs. Roberts:_ "Why, Mrs. Miller." _Roberts:_ "Mrs. Miller going to have beer?" _Mrs. Roberts:_ "Oh, Edward, I don't see how you _can_ be so--But there! I won't blame you, dearest. I know you're just literally expiring for want of sleep, and it seems to me I must be the cruellest thing in the world to make you go. And if you'll say the word, I'll smash off a note now at the eleventh hour--though it's two hours of eleven yet!--and just _tell_ Mrs. Miller that you've got home down sick, and I've had to stay and take care of you. Will you?" _Roberts:_ "Oh no, Agnes. It wouldn't be the truth." _Mrs. Roberts_, in a rapture of admiration and affection: "Oh, who _cares_ for the truth in such a cause, you poor heroic angel, you? Well, if you insist upon going, I suppose we must; and now the only way is for you to keep everything clearly in mind. You'd better say it over backward, now, and begin with evening dress, because that's the most important. Now! _Evening dress; Mrs. Miller awfully angry; last half, anyway; mustn't go to sleep; Willis at ten; me alone with the children; both girls out._ Now, do you think--Ow--e--e--e!" A ring at the door extorts a shriek from Mrs. Roberts, who simultaneously gathers her robes about her, in order to fall with decency in the event of burglars or fire, while her husband rises and goes to open the apartment door. "Who can it be, at this hour? Oh! Amy!" _Mrs. Willis Campbell_, in the doorway: "Oh, Amy, indeed! How d' y' do, Edward! Glad to see you back alive, and just in time for Agnes to kill you with Mrs. Miller's musicale. May I ask, Agnes, how long you expected me to freeze to death down in that coupe before you came?" _Mrs. Roberts:_ "Oh, Amy, dear, you must forgive me! I was just staying to give Edward his charges--you know he's so terribly forgetful--and I forgot all about you!"