Up to this moment, everything has gone along beautifully. Angelica has worked up a visiting Duke to the proposal point, and Mr. Blivvins has behaved so conservatively that the dinner guests are on the verge of accepting him. And then he had to wreck the entire works. Led away by too conscientious attention to the products of the ancestral wine-cellar, Mr. B. is, with unfortunate geniality, insisting that the footman try one of his best cigars. The Duke might overlook this, but the footman--never. [Illustration] THE COMMITTEE OF WELCOME This moment marks the dawn of a new life for the Blivvins family. Their future seems to be practically assured. Angelica, the one and only daughter, has got in some deadly work on one of the local Dukes, who has been pressed into coming down for the week-end. To make it all delightfully homelike, the Duke has brought along his sister, one of the most unmarried noble-women in the entire United Kingdom. This charming little domestic scene shows the arrival of the guests, just at tea time. Angelica is going strong with the Duke (his is the third figure from the right--the clean-cut, red-blooded lad of barely seventy summers). Mr. Blivvins is welcoming the bishop to the little circle--a bishop is always so ornamental when draped gracefully around a tea-table. [Illustration] THE EROTIC MOTIVE This picture does not show the great moment in any one of our popular farces,--it is far more tragic than that. It shows how Mr. Blivvins--always an artist at that sort of thing--has managed to get himself disliked. In an absent-minded moment--all life’s bitter tragedies happen in such moments--our hero has mistaken a door, and walked into the room where the Duke’s sister has retired to her chaste repose. The noble vestal is defending her honor at the point of a curling-iron, shrieking, “Stop, villain, or I fire.” [Illustration] THE GRAND TOUR The snappy little evening’s entertainment--Mr. Blivvins takes his guests on a personally conducted tour of the picture galleries, proudly pointing out all of his ancestral portraits--that came with the house, when he bought it. Of course, a little of that sort of thing is perfectly ripping, but, after the first eight miles, picture galleries seem to pall a bit. The Duke’s sister is plainly bored. [Illustration] ON WITH THE DANCE Things are looking considerably brighter here. Angelica has had the inspiration of injecting a little jazz into the Duke’s attentions. After all, dukes are but human; they can’t hold out against a jazz. The noble antique has dropped forty years from his age, and is dancing with all the abandon of a chorus man. Nothing could be sweeter, so far as Angelica’s proud parents are concerned, but the bishop and the Duke’s sister,--oh, Heavens! THE BITTER END