effort to repulse her own sympathy, she was aware of the presence
near her of an elderly man and woman. The old man wore a shining
silk hat and shining new black clothes. His expansive shirt-bosom
was very white, but not glossy, and rumpled in places; and his
collar was of the spiked and antique pattern known as a "dickey."
His wrinkled, red face was edged by a white fringe of whisker.
He wore large gold-bowed spectacles, and his jaws worked incessantly.

The woman was a little, mild, wrinkled creature, with an anxious blue
eye and snowy hair, smoothed down over her ears, under her fine bonnet.
She was richly dressed, but her silks and velvets ill suited the season.
Had she seen them anywhere else, Mrs. Carriswood might not have
recognized them; but there, with Tommy before them, both of them
feverishly absorbed in Tommy, she recognized them at a glance.
She had a twinge of pity, watching the old faces pale and kindle.
With the first rustle of applause, she saw the old father slip
his hand into the old mother's. They sat well behind a pillar;
and however excited they became, they never so lost themselves
as to lean in front of their shield. This, also, she noticed.
The speech over, the woman wiped her eyes. The old man joined
in the tumult of applause that swept over the galleries, but the old
woman pulled his arm, evidently feeling that it was not decent for them
to applaud. She sat rigid, with red cheeks and her eyes brimming;
he was swaying and clapping and laughing in a roar of delight.
But it was he that drew her away, finally, while she fain would
have lingered to look at Tommy receiving congratulations below.

"Poor things," said Mrs. Carriswood, "I do believe they haven't
let him know that they are here." And she remembered how she had
pitied them for this very possibility of humiliation years before.