"I'll go if you'll tell me where," he said, and he confided to me, "Never
knows where her shawl is one-quarter of the time."

"Well, I think I left it in the office somewhere. You might ask at the
desk; or perhaps it's in the rack by the dining-room door--or maybe up in
our room."

"I thought so," said her husband, with another glance at me, as if it were
the greatest fun in the world, and he started amiably off.

I went and took a chair by the lady and the Altrurian, and she began at
once: "Oh, I'm so glad you've come! I have been trying to enlighten Mr.
Homos about some of the little social peculiarities among us that he finds
so hard to understand. He was just now," the lady continued, "wanting to
know why all the natives out here were not invited to go in and join our
young people in the dance, and I've been trying to tell him that we
consider it a great favor to let them come and take up so much of the
piazza and look in at the windows."

She gave a little laugh of superiority, and twitched her pretty head in
the direction of the young country girls and country fellows who were
thronging the place that night in rather unusual numbers. They were well
enough looking, and, as it was Saturday night, they were in their best. I
suppose their dress could have been criticised; the young fellows were
clothed by the ready-made clothing-store, and the young girls after their
own devices from the fashion papers; but their general effect was good,
and their behavior was irreproachable; they were very quiet--if anything,
too quiet. They took up a part of the piazza that was yielded them by
common usage, and sat watching the hop inside, not so much enviously, I
thought, as wistfully; and for the first time it struck me as odd that