"Oh, throw 'em out of the window."

"Aw', now, Mr. Blair," poor Harris protested, "I clean forgot; is
it with these here tomatoes, or with the dessert?"

"Go to the devil!" Blair said, under his breath. And the finger-
bowls appeared with the salad.

"What's this nonsense?" Mrs. Maitland demanded; then, realizing
Blair's effort, she picked up a finger-bowl and looked at it,
cocking an amused eyebrow. "Well, Blair," she said, with loud
good nature, "we are putting on airs!"

Blair pretended not to hear. For the whole of that appalling
experience he had nothing to say--even to Elizabeth, sitting
beside him in the new white dress, the spun silk of her brown
hair shimmering in the amazing glitter of the great cut-glass
chandelier. The other young people, glancing with alarmed eyes
now at Blair, and now at his mother, followed their host's
example of silence. Mrs. Maitland, however, did her duty as she
saw it; she asked condescending questions as to "how you children
amuse yourselves," and she made her crude jokes at everybody's
expense, with side remarks to Robert Ferguson about their
families: "That Knight boy is Molly Wharton's stepson; he looks
like his father. Old Knight is an elder in The First Church; he
hands round the hat for other people to put their money in--never
gives anything himself. I always call his wife 'goose Molly.' ...
Is that young Clayton, Tom Clayton's son? He looks as if he had
some gumption; Tom was always Mr. Doestick's friend. ... I