t her, I shouldn't have minded it. And
now--"

Campbell: "Now--"

Mrs. Somers: "Now all those geese are coming back from the other room,
and they'll see that I've been crying, and everybody will know
everything. Willis--"

Campbell: "_Willis?_"

Mrs. Somers: "Let me go! I must bathe my eyes! You stay here and
receive them! I'll be back at once!" She escapes from the arms stretched
towards her, and out of the door, just before her guests enter from the
library, and Campbell remains to receive them. The ladies, in returning,
call over one another's heads and shoulders.

XI

_MR. CAMPBELL and the OTHERS_

Mrs. Roberts: "Amy, it's _lovely_! But it doesn't _half_ do you
justice."

Young Mrs. Bemis: "It's too sweet for _anything_, Mrs. Somers."

Mrs. Crashaw: "Why did you let the man put you into that ridiculous
seventeenth-century dress? Can't he paint a modern frock?"

Mrs. Wharton: "But what exquisite coloring, Mrs. Somers!"

Mrs. Miller: "He's got just your lovely turn of the head."

Miss Bayly: "And the way you hold your fan--what character he's thrown
into it!"

Mrs. Roberts: "And that fall of the skirt, Amy; that skirt is _full_ of
character!" She discovers Mr. Campbell behind the tea-urn. He has Mrs.
Somers's light wrap on his shoulders, and her fan in his hand, and he
alternately hides his blushes with it, and coquettishly folds it and
pats his mouth in a gross caricature of Mrs. Somers's manner. In rising
he twitches his coat forward in a similar burlesque of a lady's
management of her skirt. "Why, where is Amy, Willis?"

Campbell: "Gone a moment. Some trouble about--the hot water."

Lawton: "Hot water that you've been getting into? Ah, young man, look me
in the eye!"

Campbell: "Your glass one, Doctor?"

Young Mr. Bemis: "Why, my dear, has your father got a glass eye?"

Mrs. Bemis: "Of _course_ he hasn't! What an idea! I don't know what Mr.
Campbell means."

Lawton: "I've no doubt he wishes I had a glass eye--two of them, for
that matter. But that isn't answering my question. Where is Mrs.
Somers?"

Campbell: "That was my sister's question, and I did answer it. Have some
tea, ladies? I'm glad you like my portrait, and that you think he's got
my lovely turn of the head, and the way I hold my fan, and the character
of my skirt; but I agree with you that it isn't half as pretty as I am."

The Ladies: "Oh, what shall we do to him? Prescribe for us, Doctor."

Campbell: "No, no! I wa