MRS. VOYSEY. Bilious, perhaps! I quite understood you didn't care to dine. But why not have taken your coat off? How foolish in this warm room! MR. GEORGE BOOTH. Thank you. I'm just going. _He seizes the market basket. At that moment_ MRS. HUGH _appears_. BEATRICE. Your shawl, mother. [_and she clasps it round_ MRS. VOYSEY'S _shoulders_.] MRS. VOYSEY. Thank you, Beatrice. I thought I had it on. [_then to_ MR. BOOTH _who is now entangled in his comforter_.] A merry Christmas to you. BEATRICE. Good evening, Mr. Booth. MR. GEORGE BOOTH. I beg your pardon. Good evening, Mrs. Hugh. HONOR. [_with sudden inspiration, to the company in general._] Why shouldn't I write in here . . now the table's cleared! MR. GEORGE BOOTH. [_sternly, now he is safe by the door._] Will you see me out, Edward? EDWARD. Yes. _He follows the old man and his basket, leaving the others to distribute themselves about the room. It is a custom of the female members of the_ VOYSEY _family, especially about Christmas time, to return to the dining room, when the table has been cleared and occupy themselves in various ways which require space and untidiness. Sometimes as the evening wears on they partake of cocoa, sometimes they abstain._ BEATRICE _has a little work-basket, containing a buttonless glove and such things, which she is rectifying_. HONOR'S _writing is done with the aid of an enormous blotting book, which bulges with apparently a year's correspondence. She sheds its contents upon the end of the dining table and spreads them abroad._ MRS. VOYSEY _settles to the fire, opens the Nineteenth Century and is instantly absorbed in it_. BEATRICE. Where's Emily? HONOR. [_mysteriously._] Well, Beatrice, she's in the library talking to Booth. BEATRICE. Talking to her husband; good Heavens! I know she has taken my scissors. HONOR. I think she's telling him about you. BEATRICE. What about me? HONOR. You and Hugh. BEATRICE. [_with a little movement of annoyance._] I suppose this is Hugh's fault. It was carefully arranged no one was to be told till after Christmas. HONOR. Emily told me . . and Edward knows . . and Mother knows . . BEATRICE. I warned Mother a year ago. HONOR. Everyone seems to know but Booth . . so I thought he'd better be told. I suggested one night so that he might have time to think over it . . but Emily said that'd wake Alfred. Besides she's nearly always asleep herself when he comes to bed. BEATRICE. Why do they still have that baby in their room? HONOR. Emily considers it her duty. _At this moment_ EMILY _comes in, looking rather trodden upon_. HONOR _concludes in the most audible of whispers_ . . HONOR. Don't say anything . . it's my fault. BEATRICE. [_fixing her with a severe forefinger._] Emily . . have you taken my best scissors? EMILY. [_timidly._] No, Beatrice. HONOR. [_who is diving into the recesses of the blotting book._] Oh, here they are! I must have taken them. I do apologise!