s not Christabel Rendell. I'm going to buy a
dress and all the _et-ceteras_, and then mother won't have the _heart_
to say No. Nan, if you won't give us a dance, what _are_ you going to
do? You can't be so mean as to provide _no_ evening jollification!"

"My dear, remembah! You were a girl yourself!" echoed Agatha, in deep-
toned remonstrance, and then they began rattling out a list of
suggestions.

"Tableaux--"

"Progressive games--"

"Dinner-party. No old fogies! We will choose the guests."

"Music and conversation. You do the music, and we'll converse."

"General frolic, and supper to finish up. If it develops into a dance,
so much the better! It's not coming out to dance on a carpet."

"Really, Nan, it's piteous to think how _stodgy_ you have grown!
Married sisters are a delusion. We used to imagine coming to stay, and
doing whatever we liked, and eating all sorts of indigestible things
that we mayn't have at home. But now Maud can think of nothing but that
baby, and you are so prim--too fearfully prim for words."

"Prim!" shouted Mrs Vanburgh. There is really no other word to express
the outraged indignation of her tone. To hear her, one might have
supposed it the greatest insult in the world to be accused of primness
of demeanour. "You dare to sit there and call me names in my own house!
If I am prim, you had better go home and leave me. I wouldn't stay any
longer, if I'm prim. I'm sorry I asked you, if I'm prim. If I'm prim,
I wonder why you ever wanted to come. Prim, indeed! If it's prim to
know what is correct and what is not, it's a pity you are not prim too!
If I'm prim, I won't give any party at all. You had better sit round
the fire and knit stockings, and I'll read aloud _The Old Helmet_, as
I'm so prim."

Christabel raised her hands to her ears in affected distraction.

"Stop her, somebody--stop her for pity's sake! When she is once wound
up like this she will go on for hours! My dear, I crawl, I _grovel_
before you! You are _not_ prim! Nothing is further removed from your
character. You are going to give us as many parties as we like."

"Humph!" said Mrs Vanburgh shortly. She was by no means appeased, and
during the meal which followed ejaculations of "Prim--prim, indeed!"
fell from her lips at intervals like so many minute-guns of indignation,
while Christabel ate cakes and scones with undiminished zest, and smiled
upon her with patronising indulgence.

In relatin