uncontrollably that tears were in her eyes. Mrs.
Vertrees followed decorously, no mirth about her; on the contrary,
she looked vaguely disturbed, as if she had eaten something not quite
certain to agree with her, and regretted it.

"Papa! Oh, oh!" And Miss Vertrees was fain to apply a handkerchief upon
her eyes. "I'm SO glad you made us go! I wouldn't have missed it--"

Mrs. Vertrees shook her head. "I suppose I'm very dull," she said,
gently. "I didn't see anything amusing. They're most ordinary, and the
house is altogether in bad taste, but we anticipated that, and--"

"Papa!" Mary cried, breaking in. "They asked us to DINNER!"

"What!"

"And I'm GOING!" she shouted, and was seized with fresh paroxysms.
"Think of it! Never in their house before; never met any of them but the
daughter--and just BARELY met her--"

"What about you?" interrupted Mr. Vertrees, turning sharply upon his
wife.

She made a little face as if positive now that what she had eaten would
not agree with her. "I couldn't!" she said. "I--"

"Yes, that's just--just the way she--she looked when they asked her!"
cried Mary, choking. "And then she--she realized it, and tried to turn
it into a cough, and she didn't know how, and it sounded like--like a
squeal!"

"I suppose," said Mrs. Vertrees, much injured, "that Mary will have an
uproarious time at my funeral. She makes fun of--"

Mary jumped up instantly and kissed her; then she went to the mantel
and, leaning an elbow upon it, gazed thoughtfully at the buckle of her
shoe, twinkling in the firelight.

"THEY didn't notice anything," she said. "So far as they were concerned,
mamma, it was one of the finest coughs you ever coughed."

"Who were 'they'?" asked her father. "Whom did you see?"

"Only the mother and daughter," Mary answered. "Mrs. Sheridan is dumpy
and rustly; and Miss Sheridan is pretty and pushing--dresses by the
fashion magazines and talks about New York people that have
their pictures in 'em. She tutors the mother, but not very
successfully--partly because her own foundation is too flimsy and partly
because she began too late. They've got an enormous Moor of painted
plaster or something in the hall, and the girl evidently thought it was
to her credit that she selected it!"

"They have oil-paintings, too," added Mrs. Vertrees, with a glance of
gentle price at the Landseers. "I've always thought oil-paintings in a
private house the worst of taste."

"Oh, if one owned a Raph