may slide into bigamy. And after thirty years!... She never thought of
bigamy as a crime, nor did it occur to her to run out and drown herself
for shame because she was not properly married to Priam!

No, it has to be said in favour of Alice that she invariably took things
as they were.

"I think you'd better all come in and sit down quietly," she said.

"Eh! It's very kind of you," said the mother of the curates, limply.

The last thing that the curates wanted to do was to sit down quietly.
But they had to sit down. Alice made them sit side by side on the sofa.
The heavy, elder brother, who had not spoken a word, sat on a chair
between the sideboard and the door. Their mother sat on a chair near the
table. Priam fell into his easy-chair between the fireplace and the
sideboard. As for Alice, she remained standing; she showed no
nervousness except in her handling of the toasting-fork.

It was a great situation. But unfortunately ordinary people are so
unaccustomed to the great situation, that, when it chances to come, they
feel themselves incapable of living up to it. A person gazing in at the
window, and unacquainted with the facts, might have guessed that the
affair was simply a tea party at which the guests had arrived a little
too soon and where no one was startlingly proficient in the art of
small-talk.

Still, the curates were apparently bent on doing their best.

"Now, mother!" one of them urged her.