off again.

For a family in mourning the dinner was lively; the more so that before
it was half over Julia had arranged that her brother, eschewing the
inferior spectacle, should take the girls to the Theatre Francais. It
was her idea, and Nick had a chance to observe how an idea was apt to be
not successfully controverted when it was Julia's. Even the programme
appeared to have been prearranged to suit it, just the thing for the
cheek of the young person--_Il ne Faut Jurer de Rien_ and _Mademoiselle
de la Seigliere_. Peter was all willingness, but it was Julia who
settled it, even to sending for the newspaper--he was by a rare accident
unconscious of the evening's bill--and to reassuring Biddy, who was
happy but anxious, on the article of their being too late for good
places. Peter could always get good places: a word from him and the best
box was at his disposal. She made him write the word on a card and saw a
messenger despatched with it to the Rue de Richelieu; and all this
without loudness or insistence, parenthetically and authoritatively. The
box was bespoken and the carriage, as soon as they had had their coffee,
found to be in attendance. Peter drove off in it with the girls,
understanding that he was to send it back, and Nick waited for it over
the finished repast with the two ladies. After this his mother was
escorted to it and conveyed to her apartments, and all the while it had
been Julia who governed the succession of events. "Do be nice to her,"
Lady Agnes breathed to him as he placed her in the vehicle at the door
of the cafe; and he guessed it gave her a comfort to have left him
sitting there with Mrs. Dallow.

He had every disposition to be nice to his charming cousin; if things
went as she liked them it was the proof of a certain fine force in
her--the force of assuming they would. Julia had her differences--some
of them were much for the better; and when she was in a mood like this
evening's, liberally dominant, he was ready to encourage most of what
she took for granted. While they waited for the return of the carriage,
which had rolled away with his mother, she sat opposite him with her
elbows on the table, playing first with one and then with another of the
objects that encumbered it; after five minutes of which she exclaimed,
"Oh I say, well go!" and got up abruptly, asking for her jacket. He said
something about the carriage and its order to come back for them, and
she replied, "Well, it can g