"Well, they tell us meat isn't good for us anyway!" piped Mrs.
Kinney, who was rheumatic, and always had scrambled eggs for dinner.

"--ELEGANT chicken, capon, probably, and on Sundays, turkey all
winter long!" a voice went on in the pause.

"My father ate meat three times a day, all his life," said Mrs.
Parker, a dark, heavy woman, with an angelic-looking daughter of
nineteen beside her, "and papa lived to be--let me see--"

"Ah, here's Jinny!" Mrs. Lancaster stopped carving to receive the
kiss of a tall, sweet-faced, eye-glassed young woman who came in,
and took the chair next hers. "Your soup's cold, dear," said she
tenderly.

Miss Virginia Lancaster looked a little chilly; her eyes, always
weak, were watery now from the sharp evening air, and her long nose
red at the tip. She wore neat, plain clothes, and a small hat, and
laid black lisle gloves and a small black book beside her plate as
she sat down.

"Good evening, everybody!" said she, pleasantly. "Late comers
mustn't complain, Ma, dear. I met Mrs. Curry, poor thing, coming out
of the League rooms, and time flew, as time has a way of doing! She
was telling me about Harry," Miss Virginia sighed, peppering her
soup slowly. "He knew he was going," she resumed, "and he left all
his little things--"

"Gracious! A child of seven?" Mrs. Parker said.