"How ridiculous!" chirped Virgilia, throwing back her head. "Do let them give you another cup of tea or some more of those biscuits. Ask for what you want. Don't be backward, even if you are a newcomer." "Dear me," said Preciosa; "don't tell me I'm bashful." "Did his sketches amount to anything?" asked Virgilia, herself reaching for the biscuits. "Well, there were plenty _of_ them. By a quarter to eight they had covered all the tables and chairs and about two-thirds of the floor. There was every evidence of that young man's being after us--a regular siege. I have no doubt he was waiting outside all through dinner; he rang the bell the very minute poor unsuspecting grandpa turned up the gas in the front parlour. But that's nothing to the one just before him." "What did _he_ do?" asked Virgilia, with all her fine blonde intentness. Preciosa threw back her mop of chestnut hair. "Followed grandpa all the way home and would hardly let him have his dinner. He had it this time, however. And then, as I say, he turned up the gas; and then----" "And then the shower began?" suggested Virgilia, putting her delicate eyebrows through their paces. "The downpour. I never knew anybody to talk faster, or give out more ideas, or wave his hands harder,--like this." Preciosa cast her muff away completely and abandoned her plump little fingers to unbridled pantomime. "The room was peopled--isn't that the way they say it, peopled?--in no time; a regular reception. There were ladies in Greek draperies seated on big cogged wheels with factory chimneys rising behind, and strong young fellows in leather aprons leaning against anvils and forges, and there were----" "I know, I know," declared Virgilia, ducking her head into her cushion, with the effect of suppressing a shriek of laughter. "And more 'ladies' reading from scrolls to children standing at their knee. And all sorts of folks blowing trumpets and bestowing garlands; Commerce, Industry, Art, Manufacturing, Education, and the rest of them. Dear child! how good of you to call all these things 'ideas'! No wonder such novelties puzzled your poor dear grandfather!" She clutched Preciosa's chubby little hand with her long white fingers, as if to squeeze from it an answering shriek. But Preciosa contained herself. "And there was a lady engineer," she went on, after a short pause, "in a light blue himation--is that what they call it, himation?--and she was fluttering it out of the cab-window----" "The Railway!" declared Virgilia, trying to laugh tears into her eyes. "And one drawing showed a lot of Cupids nesting on top of a telegraph pole----" "What did Jeremiah McNulty think of that?" "--with their little pink heels dangling down just as cute----"