MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, it’s all very well to make fun now, Dr. Lawton; but if you had been here when they first came in—’ YOUNG MRS. BEMIS: ‘Yes, indeed, I think so too, Mrs. Roberts. If Mr. Bemis—Alfred, I mean—and papa hadn’t been with me when you came out there to prepare us, I don’t know what I should have done. I should certainly have died, or gone through the floor.’ She looks fondly up into the face of her husband for approval, where he stands behind her chair, and furtively gives him her hand for pressure.’ YOUNG MR. BEMIS: ‘Somebody ought to write to the Curwens—Mrs. Curwen, that is—about it.’ MRS. BEMIS, taking away her hand: ‘Oh yes, papa, _do_ write!’ LAWTON: ‘I will, my dear. Even Mrs. Curwen, dazzling away in another sphere—hemisphere—and surrounded by cardinals and all the other celestial lights there at Rome, will be proud to exploit this new evidence of American enterprise. I can fancy the effect she will produce with it.’ MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And the Millers—what a shame they couldn’t come! How excited they would have been!—that is, Mrs. Miller. Is their baby very bad, Doctor?’ LAWTON: ‘Well, vaccination is always a very serious thing—with a first child. I should say, from the way Mrs. Miller feels about it, that Miller wouldn’t be able to be out for a week to come yet.’ MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, how ridiculous you are, Doctor!’ BEMIS, rising feebly from his chair: ‘Well, now that it’s all explained, Mrs. Roberts, I think I’d better go home; and if you’ll kindly have them telephone for a carriage—’ MRS. ROBERTS: ‘_No_, indeed, Mr. Bemis! We shall not let you go. Why, the _idea_! You must stay and take dinner with us, just the same.’ BEMIS: ‘But in this state—’ MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, never mind the _state_. You look perfectly well; and if you insist upon going, I shall know that you bear a grudge against Edward for not arresting him. Wait! We can put you in perfect order in just a second.’ She flies out of the room, and then comes swooping back with a needle and thread, a fresh white necktie, a handkerchief, and a hair-brush. ‘There! I can’t let you go to Edward’s dressing-room, because he’s there himself, and the children are in mine, and we’ve had to put the new maid in the guest-chamber—you _are_ rather cramped in flats, that’s true; that’s the worst of them—but if you don’t mind having your toilet made in public, like the King of France—’ BEMIS, entering into the spirit of it: ‘Not the least; but—’ He laughs, and drops back into his chair. MRS. ROBERTS, distributing the brush to young Mr. Bemis, and the tie to his wife, and dropping upon her knees before Mr. Bemis: ‘Now, Mrs. Lou, you just whip off that crumpled tie and whip on the fresh one, and, _Mister_ Lou, you give his hair a touch, and I’ll have this torn button-hole mended before you can think.’ She seizes it and begins to sew vigorously upon it. MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes, you are the most ridiculously sensible woman in the country.’