and with waxed white mustaches was rounded up; and, with five or six
debutantes Vee had got hold of, it's some crusty push.

First off Mrs. Bagstock had been so limp and unsteady on her pins that
she'd started in by receivin' 'em propped up in a big chair. But by
the time the old parlor got half full and the society chatter cuts
loose she seems to buck up a lot.

Next thing I knew, she was standin' as straight as a Fifth Avenue
doorman, her wrinkled old chin well up and her eyes shinin'. Honest,
she was just eatin' it up. Looked the part, too. A bit out of date as
to costume, maybe; but with her white hair piled up high and the
diamond-set combs in it, and a cameo as big as a door-knob at her
throat, and with that grand-duchess air of hers, hanged if she don't
carry it off great. Why, I heard her gossipin' with old Madam Van Pyle
as chummy and easy as if it had been only last week since they'd seen
each other, instead of near twenty years ago.

Havin' to pay off some of the help, I had to stick around until it was
all over. So I was there when she staggers towards Tessie and leans
heavy on her shoulder.

"They--they've all gone, haven't they?" she asks. "I--I'm so tired
and--and so happy! It has been the most successful Wednesday I've had
for some time, hasn't it?"

"Has it?" says Tessie. "Why, Auntie, this was a knockout, one of the
kind you read about. Honest, even when I was fittin' corsets for the
carriage trade, I never got so close to such a spiffy bunch. But we
had the goods to hand 'em--caviar sandwiches, rum for the tea, fizz in