Olive thought of Basil Ransom, and wondered whether he would do for an
unfriendly element. She mentioned him to Mrs. Farrinder, who expressed
an earnest hope that if he were opposed to the principles which were so
dear to the rest of them, he might be induced to take the floor and
testify on his own account. "I should be so happy to answer him," said
Mrs. Farrinder, with supreme softness. "I should be so glad, at any
rate, to exchange ideas with him." Olive felt a deep alarm at the idea
of a public dispute between these two vigorous people (she had a
perception that Ransom would be vigorous), not because she doubted of
the happy issue, but because she herself would be in a false position,
as having brought the offensive young man, and she had a horror of false
positions. Miss Birdseye was incapable of resentment; she had invited
forty people to hear Mrs. Farrinder speak, and now Mrs. Farrinder
wouldn't speak. But she had such a beautiful reason for it! There was
something martial and heroic in her pretext, and, besides, it was so
characteristic, so free, that Miss Birdseye was quite consoled, and
wandered away, looking at her other guests vaguely, as if she didn't
know them from each other, while she mentioned to them, at a venture,
the excuse for their disappointment, confident, evidently, that they
would agree with her it was very fine. "But we can't pretend to be on
the other side, just to start her up, can we?" she asked of Mr. Tarrant,
who sat there beside his wife with a rather conscious but by no means
complacent air of isolation from the rest of the company.

"Well, I don't know--I guess we are all solid here," this gentleman
replied, looking round him with a slow, deliberate smile, which made his
mouth enormous, developed two wrinkles, as long as the wings of a bat,
on either side of it, and showed a set of big, even, carnivorous teeth.

"Selah," said his wife, laying her hand on the sleeve of his waterproof,
"I wonder whether Miss Birdseye would be interested to hear Verena."

"Well, if you mean she sings, it's a shame I haven't got a piano," Miss
Birdseye took upon herself to respond. It came back to her that the girl
had a gift.

"She doesn't want a piano--she doesn't want anything," Selah remarked,
giving no apparent attention to his wife. It was a part of his attitude
in life never to appear to be indebted to another person for a
suggestion, never to be surprised or unprepared.

"Well, I don't know t