such people thought of elopements? "Fuddy-duddies!" she said to herself,
using Maurice's slang with an eager sense of being just as young as he
was.

When the guests arrived and they all filed into the private and very
expensive dining room, Eleanor looked indeed quite "stunning"; her
shyness did not seem shyness, but only a sort of proud beauty of
silence, which might cover Heaven knows what deeps of passion and of
knowledge! Little Rose was glowing and simpering, and the two older
ladies were giving each other significant glances. Maurice's "fellows,"
shepherded by their host, shambled speechlessly along in the background.
The instant that they saw the bride they had fallen into dumbness. Brown
said, under his breath to Hastings, "Gosh!" And Hastings gave Morton a
thrust in the ribs, which Morton's dignity refused to notice; later,
when he was at Eleanor's right, the flattery of her eagerly attentive
silence instantly won him. Maurice had so expatiated to her upon
Morton's brains, that she was really in awe of him--of which, of course,
Morton was quite aware! It was so exhilarating to his twenty years that
he gave his host a look of admiring congratulation--and Maurice's pride
rose high!--then fell; for, somehow, his dinner wouldn't "go"! He
watched the younger men turn frankly rude shoulders to the older ladies,
who did their best to be agreeable. He caught stray words: Eleanor's
efforts to talk as Rose talked--Rose's dog was "perfectly sweet," but
"simply awful"; then a dog story; "wasn't that _killing_?" And Eleanor:
she once had a cat--"perfectly frightfully cunning!" said Eleanor,
stumbling among the adverbs of adolescence.

At Rose's story the young men roared, but Eleanor's cat awoke no
interest. Then one of the "faded flowers" spoke to Brown, who said,
vaguely, "What, ma'am?"

The other lady was murmuring in Maurice's ear:

"What is your college?"

Maurice trying to get Rose's eye, so that he might talk to her and give
the boys a chance to do their duty, said, distractedly, "Princeton. Say,
Hastings! Tell Mrs. Ellis about the miner who lost his shirt--"

Mrs. Ellis looked patient, and Hastings, dropping into agonized shyness,
said, "Oh, I can't tell stories!"

After that, except for Morton's philosophical outpourings to the
listening Eleanor, most of the dreary occasion of eating poor food,
served by a waiter who put his thumb into things, was given up to the
stifled laughter of the girl and boys, an