Dr. Melton cried out at this, "Look here, Susan Emery, you're like the carpenter that was so proud of his good planing that he planed his boards all away to shavings." Mrs. Emery looked at him with a lack of comprehension of his meaning equaled only by her evident indifference to it. "I mean--I thought what you were going in for was giving Lydia a good time this winter. You're running her as though she were a transcontinental railway system." "You can't accomplish anything without system in this world," said Mrs. Emery. She added, "Perhaps Lydia will find, when she comes to ordering her own life, that she will miss her old mother's forethought and care." Lydia flung herself remorsefully on her mother's neck. "I'm so _sorry_, Mother dear," she almost sobbed. Dr. Melton's professional eye took in the fact that everyone in the room was high-strung and tense. "The middle-of-the-social-season symptom," he called it to himself. "I'm so sorry, Mother," Lydia went on. "I will be more careful next time. You are _so_ good to--to--" "Good Heavens!" said Dr. Melton. "All the child did was to give herself a moment's time to look at a fine spectacle, after spending all a precious afternoon on such a tragically idiotic pursuit as cards." "Oh, _sunsets_!" Mrs. Emery disposed of them with a word. "Come, Lydia." "I'll go with her, and carry her bag," said the doctor. "You made such a good job of getting her here on time," said Mrs. Emery, unappeased. The Judge offered to go, as a means of one of his rare visits with Lydia, but his wife declared with emphasis that she didn't care who went or didn't go so long as she herself saw that Lydia did not take to star-gazing again. It ended by all four proceeding down the street together. "You're sure you remember everything, Lydia?" asked her mother. "Let me see," said the girl, laughing nervously. "Do I? The Governor's wife is his second, so I'm to waste no time admiring the first set of children. They're Methodists, so I'm to keep quiet about our being Episcopalians--" "I guess we're not Episcopalians enough to hurt," commented her father, who had never taken the conversion of his women-folks very seriously. "And it's my pink crepe for dinner and tan-colored suit if they have afternoon tea. And Mrs. Mallory is to be asked to visit us, but not her daughter, because of her impossible husband, and I'm to play my prettiest to the Governor, because he's always needing dynamos and such in the works, and Paul--" The big car came booming around the corner, and she stopped her category of recommendations. The doctor rushed in with a last one as they stepped hurriedly toward the rear platform: "And don't forget that your host is the most unmitigated old rascal that ever stood in with two political machines at once." The Judge swung her up on the platform, the doctor gave her valise to the conductor, her mother waved her hand, and she was off.