olded at her waist, and
putting one of them out to take up the fan: "You said you were not
criticising the fan."

Campbell, quickly seizing the hand, with the fan in it: "Ah, I'm wrong!
Here's another one no bigger. Let me see which is the largest."

Mrs. Somers, struggling not very violently to free her hand: "Mr.
Campbell!"

Campbell: "Don't take it away! You must listen to me now, Amy."

Mrs. Somers, rising abruptly, and dropping her fan as she comes forward
to meet an elderly gentleman arriving from the landing: "Mr. Bemis! How
very heroic of you to come such a day! Isn't it too bad?"

II

_MR. BEMIS; MRS. SOMERS; MR. WILLIS CAMPBELL_

Bemis: "Not if it makes me specially welcome, Mrs. Somers." Discovering
Campbell: "Oh, Mr. Campbell!"

Campbell, striving for his self-possession as they shake hands: "Yes,
another hero, Mr. Bemis. Mrs. Somers is going to brevet everybody who
comes to-day. She didn't _say_ heroes to me, but--"

Mrs. Somers: "You shall have your tea at once, Mr. Bemis." She rings. "I
was making Mr. Campbell wait for his. You don't order up the teapot for
one hero."

Bemis: "Ha, ha, ha! No, indeed! But I'm very glad you do for two. The
fact is"--rubbing his hands--"I'm half frozen."

Mrs. Somers: "Is it so very cold?" To Campbell, who presents her fan
with a bow: "Oh, thank you." To Mr. Bemis: "Mr. Campbell has just been
objecting to my fan. He doesn't like its being hand-painted, as he
calls it."

Bemis: "That reminds me of a California gentleman whom I found looking
at an Andrea del Sarto in the Pitti Palace at Florence one
day--by-the-way, _you've_ been a Californian too, Mr. Campbell; but you
won't mind. He seemed to be puzzled over it, and then he said to me--I
was standing near him--'Hand-painted, I presume?'"

Mrs. Somers: "Ah! ha, ha, ha! How very good!" To the maid, who appears:
"The tea, Lizzie."

Campbell: "You don't think he was joking?"

Bemis, with misgiving: "Why, no, it never occurred to me that he was."

Campbell: "You can't always tell when a Californian's joking."

Mrs. Somers, with insinuation: "_Can't_ you? Not even adoptive ones?"

Campbell: "Adoptive ones never joke."

Mrs. Somers: "Not even about hand-painted fans? What an interesting
fact!" She sits down on the sofa behind the little table on which the
maid arranges the tea, and pours out a cup. Then, with her eyes on Mr.
Bemis: "Cream and sugar both? Yes?" Holding a cube of sugar in the
tongs: "