But while we sat at tea in Armstrong's family dining-room, which adjoined the school commons, we were made aware of the return of the swimming party by the constant shuffle and tramp of feet through the hall and the noise of feeding in the next room. At our table were present Mrs. Armstrong, her sister (who had a frightened air when addressed and conversed in monosyllables), the parents of the sick pupil, and Armstrong's two eldest children. I surmised that the younger children had been in the habit of sharing in the social meal, and had been crowded out on this occasion by the number of guests; for I heard them _fremunt_ing _in carcere_ behind a door through which the waitress passed out and in, bringing plates of waffles. The remonstrances of the waitress were also audible, and, when the wailing rose high, my hostess's face had a distrait expression, as of one prepared at any moment for an irruption of infant Goths. Mrs. Armstrong was a vivacious little woman, who, I conjectured, had once been a village belle, with some pretensions to _espieglerie_ and the fragile prettiness common among New England country girls. But the bearing and rearing of a family of children, and the matronizing of a houseful of hungry school-boys in such a way as to make ends meet, had substituted a faded and worried look for her natural liveliness of expression. She bore up bravely, however, against the embarrassments of the occasion. In particular, it pleased her to take a facetious view of college life. "Oh, Mr. Polisson," she cried, "I am afraid that you and my husband were very gay young men when you were at college together. Oh, don't tell me; I know--I know. I've heard of some of your scrapes." I protested feebly against this impeachment, but Armstrong winked at me with the air of a sly dog, and said: "It's no use, Polisson. You can't fool Mrs. A. Buckingham and one or two of the fellows have been here to dinner occasionally, and I'm afraid they've given us away." "Yes," she affirmed, "Mr. Buckingham was one of you too, I guess, though he _is_ the Rev. Mr. Buckingham now. Oh, he has told me." "You remember old Buck?" put in Armstrong. "He is preaching near here--settled over a church at Bobtown." "Yes," I answered, "I remember there was such a man in the class, but really I didn't know that he was--ah--such a character as you seem to infer, Mrs. Armstrong." "Oh, he has quieted down now, I assure you," said the lady. "He is as prim and proper as a Methodist meeting-house. Why, he _has_ to be, you know." This amusing fiction of the wildness of Armstrong's youth had evidently become a family tradition, and even, by a familiar process, an article of belief in his own mind. It reminded me grotesquely of _Justice Shallow's_ reminiscences with _Sir John Falstaff_: "Ha, Cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that, that this knight and I have seen.... Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent!"