o keep everything clearly in mind. You'd better say it over
backward, now, and begin with evening dress, because that's the most
important. Now! _Evening dress; Mrs. Miller awfully angry; last half,
anyway; mustn't go to sleep; Willis at ten; me alone with the children;
both girls out._ Now, do you think--Ow--e--e--e!" A ring at the door
extorts a shriek from Mrs. Roberts, who simultaneously gathers her robes
about her, in order to fall with decency in the event of burglars or
fire, while her husband rises and goes to open the apartment door. "Who
can it be, at this hour? Oh! Amy!"

_Mrs. Willis Campbell_, in the doorway: "Oh, Amy, indeed! How d' y' do,
Edward! Glad to see you back alive, and just in time for Agnes to kill
you with Mrs. Miller's musicale. May I ask, Agnes, how long you expected
me to freeze to death down in that coupe before you came?"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Oh, Amy, dear, you must forgive me! I was just staying
to give Edward his charges--you know he's so terribly forgetful--and I
forgot all about you!"

_Mrs. Campbell:_ "Then I wish, the next time, he'd give _you_ some
charges, my dear. But come, now, do! We shall be rather late, anyway,
and that simpleton will be perfectly furious."

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Yes, that's just what I was saying to Edward. She'll
never forgive you. If it was anybody else, I shouldn't think of dragging
him out to-night."

_Mrs. Campbell:_ "The worst of a bore like her is that she's sure to
come to all _your_ things, and you can't get off from _one_ of hers.
Willis declares he's going to strike, and I couldn't have got him out
to-night if I hadn't told him you were going to make Edward go."

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Oh, isn't it perfectly wicked, Amy! I know he's just
going to have the grippe. See how drowsy he is! That's one of the first
symptoms."

_Mrs. Campbell:_ "It's one of the symptoms of having passed the night on
a sleeping-car, too."

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "That's true, and thank you, Amy. I forgot all about
that. But now, Edward, dear, you _will_ remember, won't you? If I could
only stay with you----"

_Roberts_, who has been drowsily drooping in his chair during the
exchange of these ideas between the ladies: "Oh, I'm all right, Agnes.
Or--ow, ugh, ow!--I should be if I had a cup of tea."

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "There! I _knew_ it. If I had been worth anything at all
as a wife I should have had you a cup of tea long ago. Oh, how
heartless! And I've let both the girls go, and the f