Mr. Heth explained, and said that nobody was. He'd only mentioned the possibility if the fellow ever got troublesome, which was most unlikely. His wife was a climber--social bug, you know. "Pays to know your man, eh, Cally?..." "I should say! And O'Neill's wife manages him?" "Don't they always?" said he, pinching her little pink ear. And thereupon he bethought himself of a thoroughly characteristic quotation, which he rendered right jovially: "'Pins and needles, pins and needles, When a man marries, his trouble begins,' "As the fellow says," concluded Mr. Heth; and so departed for The Fourth National Bank. Mrs. Heth, reminding her daughter about being fresh for the afternoon, glided to her writing-desk in the library. Carlisle confronted three hours of leisure before the prospective Great Remeeting. She went to the telephone, and called up her second-best girl-friend, Evelyn McVey. It developed that she had nothing special to say to Evey, or Evey to her. However, they talked vivaciously for twenty minutes, while operators reported both lines "busy" and distant people were annoyed and skeptical. That done, Carlisle went to the upstairs sitting-room, and sat by the fire reading a Christmas magazine, which had come out on Guy Fawkes day, the 5th of November. Presently she slipped off her pumps the better to enjoy the heat: and assuredly there is nothing surprising in that. It is moral certainty that Queens and Empresses (if we knew all) dearly love to sit in their stocking-feet at times, and frequently do so when certain that the princesses-in-waiting and lady companions of the bath are not looking. The telephone interrupted Carlisle twice, but she toasted her arched and silken little insteps well, read three stories, and thought that one of them was quite sweet. Where she got her hands and feet she often wondered. They were so clearly neither Heth nor Thompson. By this time her unwearied mother had gone out to "get in" three or four calls; also an important Charities engagement at Mrs. Byrd's, where Carlisle was to call for her in the car at five o'clock _sharp_, for their visit to the Bellingham. Carlisle now became conscious of a void, and ate five chocolates from a large adjacent box of them, the gift of J. Forsythe Avery. Then she yawned delicately, and picked up "Sonnets from the Portuguese" (by Mrs. Browning); for she, it must be remembered, had a well-rounded ideal, and believed that it was your duty to cultivate your mind. Life isn't all parties and beaux, as she sometimes remarked to Mattie Allen....