"Oh, heavens!" Norma exclaimed, bringing her face close to the dark window, as to a mirror. "Oh, say it will be gone by Friday! Because on Friday I'm going to have tea with Mrs. Liggett--her husband came in to-day and asked me. Oh, the darling! He certainly is the--well, the most--well, I don't know!----His voice, and the quiet, _quiet_ way----" "Oh, for pity's sake go change your shoes!" Rose interrupted. "You are the biggest idiot! I went into the store to get her," Rose explained, "and I've had all this once, in the subway. How Mr. Liggett picks up his glasses, on their ribbon, to read the titles of books----" "Oh, you shut up!" Norma called, departing. And unashamed, when dinner was finished, and the table cleared, she produced a pack of cards and said that she was going to play _The Idle Year_. "... and if I get it, it'll mean that the man I marry is going to look exactly like Chris Liggett." She did not get it, and played it again. The third time she interrupted Wolf's slow and patient perusal of the _Scientific American_ to announce that she was now going to play it to see if he was in love with Mary Redding. "Think how nice that would be, Aunt Kate, a double wedding. And if Wolf or Rose died and left a lot of children, the other one would always be there to take in whoever was left--you know what I mean!" "You're the one Wolf ought to marry, to make it complete," Rose, who was neatly marking a cross-stitch "R" on a crash towel, retaliated neatly. "I can't marry my cousin, Miss Smarty." "Oh, don't let a little thing like that worry you," Wolf said, looking across the table. "Our children would be idiots--perhaps they would be, anyway!" Norma reminded him, in a gale of laughter. Her aunt looked up disapprovingly over her glasses. "Baby, don't talk like that. That's not a nice way to talk at all. Wolf, you lead her on. Now, we'll not have any more of that, if you please. I see the President is making himself very unpopular, Wolf--I don't know why they all make it so hard for the poor man! Mrs. McCrea was in the market this morning----" "If I win this game, Rose, by this time next year," Norma said, in an undertone, "you'll have----" "Norma Sheridan!" "Yes, Aunt Kate!" "Do you want me to speak to you again?" "No, ma'am!" Norma subsided for a brief space, Rose covertly watching the game. Presently the younger girl burst forth anew. "Listen, Wolf, I'll bet you that I can get more words out of the letters in Christopher than you can!" Wolf roused himself, smiled, took out his fountain pen, and reached for a sheet of paper. He was always ready for any sort of game. Norma, bending herself to the contest, put her pencil into her mouth, and stared fixedly at the green-shaded drop light. Rose, according to ancient precedent, was permitted to assist evenly and alternately. And Kate, watching them and listening, even while she drowsed over the Woman's Page, decided that after all they were nothing but a pack of children.