to say, beginning, "Does it not seem--" or "Are we not forced
to conclude--"

I suspect that Miss Caroline was sleepy. Perhaps she was nettled by the
boredom she had been made to endure without just provocation; perhaps
the fashionable fumes of varnish had been toxic to her unaccustomed
senses. At any rate she now compromised herself regrettably.

Mrs. Westley Keyts had been thinking up something to say, something
choice that should yet be sufficiently vague not to incriminate her. It
had seemed that these requirements would be met if she said, in a tone
of easy patronage, "Mr. Wordsworth is certainly a very bright writer of
poetry, but as for me--give _me_ Shakspere!"

She had thought of saying "the Bard of Avon," a polished phrase coined
for his "Compendium" by the ingenious Mr. Gaskell; but, hearing her own
voice strangely break the silence, Mrs. Keyts became timid at the last
moment and let it go at "Shakspere."

"Oh, Shakspere--of _course_!" said most of the ladies at once, and those
not quick enough to utter it concertedly looked it almost reprovingly at
the speaker.

A silence fell, as if every one must have time to recover from this
trivial platitude. But it was a silence outrageously shattered by Miss
Caroline, who said:--

"O dear! I've always considered Shakspere such an overrated man!"

The silence grew more intense, only Mrs. Potts emitting a slight but
audible gasp. But swift looks flashed from each lady to her horrified
sisters. Was it possible that the unfortunate woman had been in no
condition to come among them?

"Oh, a _greatly_ overrated man!" repeated Miss Caroline, terribly, "far
too wordy--too fond of wretched puns--so much of his humor coarse and
tiresome. By the way, have you ladies taken up Byron?"

The moment was charged, almost to explosion. A crisis impended, out of
the very speechlessness of the gathering. Mrs. Potts was aghast in
behalf of William Shakspere, and Marcella Eubanks was crimsoning at the
blunt query about Byron, well knowing that he could be taken up by a
lady only with the wariest caution, and that he would much better be let
alone. The others were torn demoralizingly between these two extremes of
distress.

But the situation was saved by the ready wit of Mrs. Judge Robinson.

"I think the hour has come for refreshments, Madam President!" she said
urbanely, and the meeting was nervously adjourned. Under the animation
thus induced an approximate equilibrium was r