_Mrs. Roberts_: “Why, she isn’t here.” _Lawton_: “So it seems. I left her with the carriage at the door when I started to walk here. She called after me down the stairs that she would be ready in three seconds, and begged me to hurry, so that we could come in together, and not let people know I’d saved half a dollar by walking.” _Mrs. Roberts_: “_She’s_ been detained too!” _Roberts_, coming forward: “Now you know what it is to have a delinquent Aunt-Mary-in-law.” _Lawton_, shaking hands with him: “O Roberts! Is that you? It’s astonishing how little one makes of the husband of a lady who gives a dinner. In my time—a long time ago—he used to carve. But nowadays, when everything is served _à la Russe_, he might as well be abolished. Don’t you think, on the whole, Roberts, you’d better not have come?” _Roberts_: “Well, you see, I had no excuse. I hated to say an engagement when I hadn’t any.” _Lawton_: “Oh, I understand. You _wanted_ to come. We all do, when Mrs. Roberts will let us.” He goes and sits down by _Mrs. Roberts_, who has taken a more provisional pose on the sofa. “Mrs. Roberts, you’re the only woman in Boston who could hope to get people, with a fireside of their own—or a register—out to a Christmas dinner. You know I still wonder at your effrontery a little?” _Mrs. Roberts_, laughing: “I knew I should catch you if I baited my hook with your old friend.” _Lawton_: “Yes, nothing would have kept me away when I heard Bemis was coming. But he doesn’t seem so inflexible in regard to me. Where is he?” _Mrs. Roberts_: “I’m sure I don’t know. I’d no idea I was giving such a formal dinner. But everybody, beginning with my own aunt, seems to think it a ceremonious occasion. There are only to be twelve. Do you know the Millers?” _Lawton_: “No, thank goodness! One meets some people so often that one fancies one’s weariness of them reflected in their sympathetic countenances. Who are these acceptably novel Millers?” _Mrs. Roberts_: “Do explain the Millers to the doctor, Edward.” _Roberts_, standing on the hearth-rug, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets: “They board.” _Lawton_: “Genus. That accounts for their willingness to flutter round your evening lamp when they ought to be singeing their wings at their own. Well, species?” _Roberts_: “They’re very nice young newly married people. He’s something or other of some kind of manufactures. And Mrs. Miller is disposed to think that all the other ladies are as fond of him as she is.” _Mrs. Roberts_: “Oh! That is not so, Edward.” _Lawton_: “You defend your sex, as women always do. But you’ll admit that, as your friend, Mrs. Miller may have this foible.” _Mrs. Roberts_: “I admit nothing of the kind. And we’ve invited another young couple who haven’t gone to housekeeping yet—the Curwens. And _he_ has the same foible as Mrs. Miller.” _Mrs. Roberts_ takes out her handkerchief, and laughs into it.