she was dainty, and she was conscious of a little pleasurable
preening of her own soul-plumage.

Margaret said nothing about the thimble and needle. Annie sat
regarding her with a sort of expectation, and the somewhat mussy
little parcel of linen lay in her lap. Annie folded over it her very
slender hands, and the horrible hair ring was in full evidence.

Margaret fixed her eyes upon it. Annie quickly placed the hand which
wore it under the other. Then she spoke, since Margaret did not, and
she said exactly the wrong thing. The being forced continually into
the wrong, often has the effect of making one quite innocently take
the first step in that direction even if no force be used.

"I hear that the last meeting of the Zenith Club was unusually
interesting," said little Annie Eustace, and she could have said
nothing more hapless to Margaret Edes in her present mood. Quite
inadvertently, she herself became the irritant party. Margaret
actually flushed. "I failed to see anything interesting whatever
about it, myself," said she tartly.

Annie offended again. "I heard that Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder's address
was really very remarkable," said she.

"It was simply a very stupid effort to be funny," returned Margaret.
"Sometimes women will laugh because they are expected to, and they
did that afternoon. Everything was simply cut and dried. It always is
at Mrs. George B. Slade's. I never knew a woman so absolutely
destitute of originality."