silence instantly won him. Maurice had so expatiated to her upon
Morton's brains, that she was really in awe of him--of which, of course,
Morton was quite aware! It was so exhilarating to his twenty years that
he gave his host a look of admiring congratulation--and Maurice's pride
rose high!--then fell; for, somehow, his dinner wouldn't "go"! He
watched the younger men turn frankly rude shoulders to the older ladies,
who did their best to be agreeable. He caught stray words: Eleanor's
efforts to talk as Rose talked--Rose's dog was "perfectly sweet," but
"simply awful"; then a dog story; "wasn't that _killing_?" And Eleanor:
she once had a cat--"perfectly frightfully cunning!" said Eleanor,
stumbling among the adverbs of adolescence.

At Rose's story the young men roared, but Eleanor's cat awoke no
interest. Then one of the "faded flowers" spoke to Brown, who said,
vaguely, "What, ma'am?"

The other lady was murmuring in Maurice's ear:

"What is your college?"

Maurice trying to get Rose's eye, so that he might talk to her and give
the boys a chance to do their duty, said, distractedly, "Princeton. Say,
Hastings! Tell Mrs. Ellis about the miner who lost his shirt--"

Mrs. Ellis looked patient, and Hastings, dropping into agonized shyness,
said, "Oh, I can't tell stories!"

After that, except for Morton's philosophical outpourings to the
listening Eleanor, most of the dreary occasion of eating poor food,
served by a waiter who put his thumb into things, was given up to the