“They have dragged me into it. They will be sorry by and by, and I tell them so.... Yes, Mrs. Wheeler, I’m coming. I was just telling Miss Townsend that every one speaks of her as the star of the show. She doesn’t seem to believe it, but it is so, isn’t it?” Mrs. Wheeler had bustled after him and was standing at his elbow. Her reply was a trifle curt, so Esther thought. “Oh, yes, yes! Quite so,” she said. “Miss Townsend is our brightest luminary, of course. Now, Bob, if you are ready to discuss the costumes, we are.... Mr. Griffin is almost like one of the family,” she explained to the girl in an audible aside. “We have seen so much of him at New Haven and in New York. Marjorie and he are _great_ friends.” Marjorie was the Wheeler daughter. Esther did not like her too well. She had a way of saying mean little things in the sweetest possible manner. The discussion concerning the costumes was very informal. Griffin exhibited his books of colored plates and offered suggestions. “As a matter of fact,” he said, in conclusion, “I think the more genuine old things you can wear the better. Unless this town is different from Denboro there must be a lot of tip top old gowns and swallow-tails hidden away in camphor. So long as we don’t exhibit Henry the Eighth on the same platform with General Scott we should make a presentable showing, I should say. Stick to the period between the Declaration of Independence and the Mexican War, that would be my idea.” The rehearsal followed the discussion. Esther sang her two solos and received her usual dole of compliments, whole-hearted or perfunctory according to the measure of envy in the make-up of the complimenters. When the gathering broke up she rather expected, and to a certain extent dreaded, that Bob Griffin would seek her out and continue their conversation. She would have enjoyed talking with him, but their talk would certainly provoke so much more talk throughout the length and breadth of Harniss that she shrank from the prospect. She was relieved, when she emerged from the vestry, to find him nowhere in sight. Marjorie Wheeler had exercised peremptory claim upon his company, she imagined.