berts:_ "Well, then, I shall have to trust you." She gathers her
train up for departure, and moves slowly towards the door. "I don't
think I've forgotten anything. Let me see: fan, handkerchief, both
gloves; pins, because you're never sure that they've put enough, and you
don't know where you'll come apart; head scarf, yes, I've got that _on_;
fur boots, I've got _them_ on. I really believe I'm all here. But I
shouldn't be, Edward, if it were not for the system I put into
everything; and I do wish, dear, that you'd try it once, just to please
me!"

_Roberts_, very drowsily: "Try what, Agnes?"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Why, getting what you have to do by heart, and
repeating it over. If you could _only_ bring yourself to say: _Both
girls out; me alone with the children; Willis at ten; mustn't go to
sleep; last half, anyway; Mrs. Miller awfully angry._ There! If you
could say that after me, I could go feeling so _much_ easier! Won't you
do it, Edward? I know it has a ridiculous sound, but--"

_Roberts_, yawning: "How am I to dress?"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Edward! Well, I always _will_ say that you're perfectly
inspired! To think of my forgetting the most important thing, after all!
Oh, I do believe there _is_ an overruling Providence, I don't _care_
what the agnostics pretend. Why, it's to be evening dress for the men,
of course! Mrs. Miller would do it to be different from Mrs. Curwen, who
let you come in your cutaways, even if it wasn't the regular thing; and
she's gone around ever since saying it was the most rowdy, Bohemian
thing she ever heard of, and she might as well have had beer, at once."

_Roberts:_ "Who?"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Why, Mrs. Miller."

_Roberts:_ "Mrs. Miller going to have beer?"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Oh, Edward, I don't see how you _can_ be so--But there!
I won't blame you, dearest. I know you're just literally expiring for
want of sleep, and it seems to me I must be the cruellest thing in the
world to make you go. And if you'll say the word, I'll smash off a note
now at the eleventh hour--though it's two hours of eleven yet!--and just
_tell_ Mrs. Miller that you've got home down sick, and I've had to stay
and take care of you. Will you?"

_Roberts:_ "Oh no, Agnes. It wouldn't be the truth."

_Mrs. Roberts_, in a rapture of admiration and affection: "Oh, who
_cares_ for the truth in such a cause, you poor heroic angel, you? Well,
if you insist upon going, I suppose we must; and now the only way is for
you t