so that they can fill your place at the table."

The Colonel was silent for a while. "Well, I'm dumned," he said
finally, "if there seems to be any end to this thing. If it was to do
over again, I'd say no for all of us."

"I've wished a hundred times they hadn't asked us; but it's too late to
think about that now. The question is, what are we going to do about
Penelope?"

"Oh, I guess she'll go, at the last moment."

"She says she won't. She took a prejudice against Mrs. Corey that day,
and she can't seem to get over it."

"Well, then, hadn't you better write in the morning, as soon as you're
up, that she ain't coming?"

Mrs. Lapham sighed helplessly. "I shouldn't know how to get it in.
It's so late now; I don't see how I could have the face."

"Well, then, she's got to go, that's all."

"She's set she won't."

"And I'm set she shall," said Lapham with the loud obstinacy of a man
whose women always have their way.

Mrs. Lapham was not supported by the sturdiness of his proclamation.

But she did not know how to do what she knew she ought to do about
Penelope, and she let matters drift. After all, the child had a right
to stay at home if she did not wish to go. That was what Mrs. Lapham
felt, and what she said to her husband next morning, bidding him let
Penelope alone, unless she chose herself to go. She said it was too
late now to do anything, and she must make the best excuse she could
when she saw Mrs. Corey. She began to wish that Irene and her father
would go and excuse her too. She could not help saying this, and then
she and Lapham had some unpleasant words.

"Look here!" he cried. "Who wanted to go in for these people in the
first place? Didn't you come home full of 'em last year, and want me to
sell out here and move somewheres else because it didn't seem to suit
'em? And now you want to put it all on me! I ain't going to stand it."

"Hush!" said his wife. "Do you want to raise the house? I didn't put
it on you, as you say. You took it on yourself. Ever since that
fellow happened to come into the new house that day, you've been
perfectly crazy to get in with them. And now you're so afraid you
shall do something wrong before 'em, you don't hardly dare to say your
life's your own. I declare, if you pester me any more about those
gloves, Silas Lapham, I won't go."

"Do you suppose I want to go on my own account?" he demanded furiously.

"No," she admitted. "Of course I don't. I k