accepting. But perhaps the young lady had the reason."

"Pshaw, March!" said Fulkerson.




VI.

So far as the Dryfoos family was concerned, the dinner might as well have
been given at Frescobaldi's rooms. None of the ladies appeared. Mrs.
Dryfoos was glad to escape to her own chamber, where she sat before an
autumnal fire, shaking her head and talking to herself at times, with the
foreboding of evil which old women like her make part of their religion.
The girls stood just out of sight at the head of the stairs, and disputed
which guest it was at each arrival; Mrs. Mandel had gone to her room to
write letters, after beseeching them not to stand there. When Kendricks
came, Christine gave Mela a little pinch, equivalent to a little mocking
shriek; for, on the ground of his long talk with Mela at Mrs. Horn's, in
the absence of any other admirer, they based a superstition of his
interest in her; when Beaton came, Mela returned the pinch, but
awkwardly, so that it hurt, and then Christine involuntarily struck her.

Frescobaldi's men were in possession everywhere they had turned the cook
out of her kitchen and the waitress out of her pantry; the reluctant
Irishman at the door was supplemented by a vivid Italian, who spoke
French with the guests, and said, "Bien, Monsieur," and "toute suite,"
and "Merci!" to all, as he took their hats and coats, and effused a
hospitality that needed no language but the gleam of his eyes and teeth
and the play of his eloquent hands. From his professional dress-coat,