Four women in such elaborate toilets that our heroine felt forthwith like a crow among birds-of-paradise, glanced carelessly over their shoulders at her without suspending their chatter to one another, and went on talking and shaking out their draperies. Each, in resigning her wraps to the maids in waiting, stepped forth ready for drawing-room parade. Susie retreated to a corner and began hurriedly to disembarrass herself of her waterproof and to let down her skirt. A maid followed her presently. “Can I help you?” professionally supercilious. “Thank you. If you would be so good as to take off my boots, I should be obliged.” The formula was ill-advised and justified the heightened hauteur of the smart Abigail. With pursed mouth and disdainful finger-tips, she removed the evidences that the wearer had trudged over muddy streets to get here, and as gingerly fitted on the dry slippers. The heat in Susie’s cheeks scorched the delicate skin when she found that the time consumed in her preparations had detained her above-stairs after everybody else had gone down. And Kitty had enjoined punctuality! She met her husband in the upper hall with a distressed look. “We are _horribly_ late,” she whispered. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference,” responded he to comfort her. “It’s fashionable to be late, isn’t it?” “Not at dinners,” she had barely time to admonish him when they crossed the threshold of the drawing room. Kitty advanced with _empressement_ to meet them, but that they were behind time was manifest from the celerity with which she introduced her husband, and without the interval of a second, the man who was to take Mrs. Cornell in to dinner. Then she whisked Mr. Cornell up to a dried-up little woman in pearl-colored velvet, presented him, asked him to take charge of her into the dining room, herself laid hold of another man’s arm, and signaled her husband to lead the way.