"We'll all do it, Mrs. Westangle," Bushwick said. "We are unanimous in
that."

"Perhaps you'll think it rather funny--odd," she said.

"The odder the better, I think," Verrian ventured, and another man
declared that nothing Mrs. Westangle would do was odd, though everything
was original.

"Well, there is such a thing as being too original," she returned. Then
she turned her head aside and looked down at something beside her plate
and said, without lifting her eyes, "You know that in the Middle Ages
there used to be flower-fights among the young nobility in Italy. The
women held a tower, and the men attacked it with roses and flowers
generally."

"Why, is this a speech?" Miss Macroyd interrupted.

"A speech from the throne, yes," Bushwick solemnly corrected her. "And
she's got it written down, like a queen--haven't you, Mrs. Westangle?"

"Yes, I thought it would be more respectful."

"She coming out," Bushwick said to Verrian across the table.

"And if I got mixed up I could go back and straighten it," the hostess
declared, with a good--humored candor that took the general fancy, "and
you could understand without so much explaining. We haven't got flowers
enough at this season," she went on, looking down again at the paper