MRS. UPJOHN'S ENTERTAINMENT.
Mrs. Upjohn was going to give an entertainment. She was about to open the
hospitable doors of the great house upon the hill, which seemed to have
chosen that pre-eminence that it might the better overlook the morals of
its neighbors. Joppa held its breath in charmed suspense. The question
was not, Will I be asked? that was affirmatively settled for every
West-End Joppite of party-going years; nor was it, What shall I wear?
which was determined once for all at the beginning of the season; but,
What will be done with me when I get there? For to go to Mrs. Upjohn's
was not the simple thing that it sounded. She wished it to be distinctly
understood that she did not ask people to her house for their amusement,
but for their moral and spiritual improvement; any one could be amused
anywhere, but _she_ wished to show her guests that there were pleasanter
things than pleasure to be had even in social gatherings, and to teach
them to hunger and thirst after better than meat and drink, while at the
same time she took pains always to provide a repast as superior to the
general run as her sentiments, quite atoning to the Joppites for the
spiritual accompaniments to her feast by its material and solid
magnificence, which lingered appetizingly in their memories long after
they had settled their consequent doctors' bills. Yes, the Joppites were
not asked to Mrs. Upjohn's to eat and drink only, or merely to have a
good time, with whatever ulterior intentions of so doing they may have
gone thither. They were asked for a purpose,--a purpose which it was vain
to guess, and impossible to escape. Go they must, and be improved they
must, _bon gré mal gré_, and enjoy themselves they would if they could.
So there were mingled feelings abroad when Mrs. Upjohn's neatly written
invitations found their way into each of the West-End houses, embracing
natives and strangers alike in their all-hospitable sweep, and even
creeping into some outlying less aristocratic quarters, where confusion
worse confounded, in the shape of refurbishing and making over, followed
agonizingly in their wake. The invitations were indited by Miss Maria
Upjohn, it being an opportunity to improve that young lady's handwriting
which her mother could not have conscientiously suffered to pass, and
stated that Mr. and Mrs. Reuben O. Upjohn requested the honor of your
company on Thursday, July 14th, punctually at four o'clock. R.S.V.P.
Joppa immediately R.S.V.P.'d that it would feel flattered to present
itself at that hour, and then looked anxiously around and asked itself
"What will it be this time?" The day dawned, and still the great question
agitated public minds unsolved.
"There isn't a word to be coaxed or threatened out of Maria," said Bell
Masters. "I believe it's something too awful to tell. Mr. De Forest,
can't you hazard a guess?"
Mr. Ogden De Forest was lazily strolling past the Masters' front steps,
where a knot of girls had gathered after a game of lawn tennis, and were
imbibing largely of lemonade, which was being fabricated on the spot,
according to demand, by Phebe and Janet Mudge. The spoons stopped
clinking in the various glasses as Bell thus audaciously called out to
the gentleman. He was not a Joppite by either birth or education; indeed,
he had but lately arrived on his first visit as a summer guest, and was
hardly known to anybody personally as yet, though there was not a girl in
the place but was already perfectly well aware of his existence, and had
placed him instantly as "one of the very swellest of the swells." He was
a short, dark, well-dressed man, and so exceedingly handsome that every
feminine heart secretly acknowledged that only to have the right to bow
to him would be a joy and pride indescribable. And here was Bell, who had
accidentally been introduced to him the day before, calling to him as
unceremoniously as if he were Dick Hardcastle or Jake Dexter. He turned
at her voice and paused at the gate, lifting his hat. "I beg you pardon,
Miss Masters, you called me?"
"Yes," said Bell. "Have some lemonade?"
"No, thanks."
"Come in."
"Thanks, not this morning. I shall see you later at Mrs. Upjohn's,
I suppose."
"Yes, you'll see us all later," said Miss Bell, fishing out a lemon-seed
from her goblet. "We shall have on different dresses, and you'll be
offering us lemonade instead of our offering it to you. Take a good look
at us so as to see how much prettier we are now than we shall be then."
Mr. De Forest obeyed literally, staring tranquilly and critically at each
in turn, his glance returning slowly to the young lady of the house.
"Unless you introduce me to your friends I shall not be able to tell them
so," he replied, in the slow, deliberate voice that seemed always to have
a ring of suppressed sarcasm in it, no matter what he said.
"Then I'll certainly not introduce you," said Bell, composedly, with a
saucy shot at him from her handsome black eyes. "And so I'll be the only
girl to get the compliment. Phebe, more sugar, please."
"I will endeavor to work one up between now and then regardless of cost.
Four o'clock, I believe. What is it to be? A dance?"
"Holy Moses! at Mrs. Upjohn's!"
"Oh, she doesn't go in for that kind of thing? A card-party, then?"
"Great heavens! Mr. De Forest, are you mad? I don't doubt she struggles
with herself over every visiting card that she uses,--and
playing-cards--!"
"Theatricals, then?"
Bell gave a positive howl. "Theatricals! Hear him, girls!"
"We hear well enough. You don't give us a chance to do any thing but
listen," said Amy Duckworth, pointedly.
"My dear, you'll converse all the more brilliantly this afternoon for a
brief period of silence now," said Bell, sweetly. "Mr. De Forest, you are
not happy in your guesses."
"I have exhausted them, unless it is to be a _musicale_."
"No. That's what we are going to have to-morrow ourselves. I sing,
you know."
"Do you? Well, a garden party perhaps?"
"That's what the Ripleys are going to have Thursday."
"Then, so far as I can see, there is nothing left for it to be except a
failure," said De Forest, lifting his arms off the gate. "And, in view of
so much coming dissipation, I feel constrained to retire and seek a
little preparatory repose. Good-morning, Miss Masters."
"How hateful not to introduce him, Bell! And when he distinctly asked
you to! How abominably mean of you! How selfish, how horrid! _I_
wouldn't have done so," broke out in an indignant chorus, as the
gentleman walked off.
"Do you think I would be such a goose as to go shares in the handsomest
man Joppa ever laid eyes on, so long as I can keep him to myself?" said
Bell, honestly. "Fish for yourselves, girls. The sea is open to all, and
you may each land another as good."
Phebe's lip curled very disdainfully. What a fuss to make over a man, and
how Bell had changed in the last few years!
"Well, keep him, if you can, but I'll be even with you yet," said Amy,
with an ominous smile. "And what luck! Here comes Mr. Moulton now, and I
know him and you don't, and I'll pay you off on the spot. Good-morning,
Mr. Moulton."
The young gentleman stopped, in his turn, at the gate as Amy
spoke to him.
"Oh, Miss Duckworth, I was on my way to call on you."
"I will go home with you in a minute," said Amy, graciously. "I wouldn't
miss your call for any thing. But first let me introduce you to my
friends. Miss Mudge, Mr. Moulton,--Miss Lane, the Misses Dexter. You
will meet us all again at Mrs. Upjohn's. Of course, you are going?"
"Certainly, now I am told that I shall meet you there, and if you will
promise that I shan't be called upon to do any thing remarkable. I have
heard alarming reports."
"That is out of anyone's power to promise," replied Miss Duckworth. "No
genius is safe from her."
"Amy, love," broke in Bell, with infinite gentleness of tone and manner,
"you have forgotten to present your friend to me, and I cannot be so
impolite as to leave him standing outside my own gate. I am Miss Masters,
Mr. Moulton. Pray excuse the informality, and come in to share our
lemonade."
Mr. Moulton, nothing loath, accordingly came in, took his glass, and sat
himself just where Bell directed, on a step at her feet. Amy colored, and
there was a subdued titter somewhere in the background, and Bell calmly
resumed the reins of the conversation. "No, there is no knowing what we
shall be put through this afternoon. One time when Mrs. Upjohn had got us
all safely inside her doors, she divided us smartly into two classes, set
herself in the middle, and announced that we were there for a spelling
bee. We shouldn't say we hadn't learned something at her house. And upon
my word we did learn something. Never before or since have I heard such
merciless words as she dealt us out. My hair stands on end still when I
recollect the horrors I underwent that day."
"I'll smuggle in a dictionary," declared Mr. Moulton. "I'll be
ready for her."
"No use. She never runs twice in the same groove. It's only sure not to
be a spelling bee this time."
"When we last went there it turned out to be a French _soirée_," said one
of the Misses Dexter, "and she announced that there would be a penny's
fine collected at the end of the evening for each English word spoken."
"Proceeds to go to a lately imported poor family," added the sister
Dexter. "There was quite a sum raised, and the head of the family
decamped with it two days after, for Heaven knows where, leaving his wife
and infants on Mrs. Upjohn's hands poorer than ever."
But Mrs. Upjohn's entertainment proved to be neither orthographic nor
linguistic. The guests arrived punctually as bidden, and their hostess,
clad in her most splendid attire, received them with her most gracious
manner. There was nothing to foretell the fate that awaited them. Her
tall, awkward daughter stood nervously by her side. Mr. Upjohn, too, kept
there valiantly for a time, then his round, ample figure and jolly face
disappeared somewhere, under chaperonage of Mrs. Bruce, his latest
admiration. But no one ever thought of Mr. Upjohn as the host, any way;
beseemed rather to be a sort of favored guest in his own parlor; and his
place was more than made good by Mr. Hardcastle, who, standing in the
centre of the room, exactly as he always stood in the centre of
everybody's room on such an occasion, appeared himself to be quite master
of ceremonies, from the grand way in which he stepped forward to meet
each guest and hope he or she "would make out to enjoy it." The rooms
filled rapidly, and before long Mrs. Upjohn turned from the door and
stood an instant reviewing her guests with the triumphant mien of a
victorious general. Then she advanced solemnly to the middle of the room,
displacing Mr. Hardcastle, who graciously made way and waved his hand to
signify to her his permission to proceed.
"My friends," said the great lady, with her deep, positive voice, drawing
her imposing figure to its fullest height, "as you know, it is never _my_
way to give parties. I leave that for the rest of you to do. When I ask
you to my house, it is with a higher motive than to make a few hours lie
less heavily on your hands."
"Dear soul!" muttered Dick Hardcastle to his crony, Jake. "Nobody could
have the conscience to charge her with ever having lightened them to us."
"And therefore," continued the lady, gazing around upon her victims with
a benignant smile, "without further prelude, I will inform you for what
object I have asked you to honor me with your presence this afternoon."
She paused, and a cold chill ran through the company. What would she do?
Would she open on them with the Westminster Catechism this time, or set
them to shelling peas for some poor man's dinner, or would she examine
them in the multiplication table? A few had run it hastily over before
leaving home to make sure that they were ready for such an emergency.
"I had thought first," Mrs. Upjohn proceeded, "of a series of games as
instructive as delightful, games of history and geography, and one
particularly of astronomy, which I am persuaded would be very helpful. It
brought out the nature of the spectroscope in a remarkably clear and
intelligent light, and after a few rounds I am sure none of us could ever
again have forgotten those elusive figures relative to the distances and
proportions of the planets. However, that must be for another time. For
today I thought it would be a pleasure as well as a benefit to us all to
learn something about a gifted and noble person who, I am surprised to
find, is not so well known in Joppa as she should be, and whom, I am
convinced, we should all be infinitely the better and happier for
knowing. I have, therefore, persuaded Mr. Webb, with whose powers as a
reader long years of acquaintanceship have so pleasantly familiarized us,
to read to us this afternoon extracts from the 'Life and Letters of the
Baroness Bunsen.'"
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Dick beneath his breath, "who's that?"
"Hush," whispered Jake. "I've got a novel of Miss Braddon's in my
pocket. I thought it might come in handy. That'll help us through till
feed time."
"You are all familiar with the name, of course," pursued Mrs. Upjohn,
smiling graciously around the dismayed circle of her guests. "The book
has been in the library this long time past, and observing with regret
that only its first fifty pages had been cut, I caught at this invaluable
opportunity to make you further acquainted with it."
Mr. Webb now came forward, a thick, green-bound volume in his hand, and a
look on his face as if he were about to open the proceedings with a
prayer, but Mrs. Upjohn held up her hand.
"One moment, please, before we begin. We ladies are so unaccustomed to
sitting with idle hands, even when listening to so absorbing a theme as
the virtues of this truly excellent Christian wife and mother, that I
thought it would be a kindness to ourselves to provide some simple work
which should occupy our fingers and at the same time be in itself a
worthy object of industry. Maria, my dear."
The silence in the room was appalling; one could almost hear the shiver
of apprehension running down the silk-and muslin-clad backs. The sign was
given, however, by the docile Maria, and immediately two enormous baskets
were brought in: one, the smaller, containing every possible implement
for unlimited sewing by unlimited hands; the other, of alarming
dimensions, filled to overflowing with shapeless and questionable
garments of a canton-flannel coarse, so yellow, so indestructible, so
altogether unwearable and hideous, that had it been branded "charity" in
flaming letters, its object could not have been more plainly designated.
Mrs. Upjohn lifted the top article and unfolded it lovingly. It was a
night-dress, atoning in lavishness of material for deficiency in grace of
make, and would have been a loose fit for the wife of the giant Chang.
"These, ladies," she said, "as you will have guessed, are for the winter
wear of our parish poor. Though you are not all so fortunate as to belong
to our church, still I feel there is not one of you here but will be more
than glad to help forward so blessed a charity as clothing the naked"
(Mrs. Upjohn, in view of the nature of the garments, spoke even more
literally than she intended), "who none the less need your ministrations
whether you worship with us or apart. Maria, my child, Bell, Phebe,
Mattie, will you kindly distribute the work among the ladies? There is
another basket ready outside if the supply gives out. Dick, I would like
you to carry around the thimbles. Jake, here are the needles and the
spools and the scissors. If I may be permitted, ladies, I would suggest
that we should all begin with the button-holes."
Nothing but the thought of the recompense in the coming supper could
have sustained Mrs. Upjohn's doomed guests in the prospect before them.
Extracts from Baroness Bunsen, and buttonholes in canton-flannel charity
nightgowns, and a hot July afternoon, made a sum of misery that was
almost too great a tax upon even Joppian amiability.
"I say it's a shame!" cried Bell Masters, in unconcealed wrath. "The idea
of springing such a trap on us! Let Mrs. Upjohn's parish sew for its own
poor, _I_ won't crease my fresh dress holding that great, thick lump on
my lap all the afternoon. I'm not going to be swindled into helping in
this fashion."
"Oh, yes you are," said Mr. Halloway, bubbling over with suppressed
merriment at the intense fun of it all. "There isn't one of you here who
will refuse. I never knew any thing so delightful and novel in my whole
life. This condensed combination, in one afternoon party of charity,
literature, and indigestion is masterly. Miss Mudge, here is a seat for
you right by Miss Masters. Miss Phebe, let me find you a chair."
And in a few moments, simply, it seemed, by the natural law of
gravitation, without any engineering whatever, Mrs. Upjohn's guests had
resolved themselves into two distinct parties, the elders all in the
drawing-room, the younger ones in the parlor across the hall, too far off
from Mr. Webb for their gay whispering to disturb that worthy as he
boldly plunged headlong at his work, to do or die written on every
feature of his thin, long face.
"So this is what the party turned out, Miss Masters, is it?" said
Moulton, pulling his moustache as he stood up beside her. "A first-class
Dorcas society."
"Charity covereth a multitude of sins," said Bell, crossly, giving a
vindictive snap with her scissors, "but it won't begin to cover the
enormity of Mrs. Upjohn's transgressions on this occasion. You gentlemen
must be very devoted to atone to us for the button-holes. There's Mr. De
Forest standing in the other room looking as if he wished he were dead.
Go and bring him here."
Thus summoned, Mr. De Forest came leisurely enough, looking, if possible,
a little more languid and blasé than he did in the morning. Bell
instantly made a place for him on the sofa by her side.
"Thanks, I would rather stand. I can take it all in better."
"Well?" asked Bell, after a pause, looking saucily up at him. "Was I
right this morning? Didn't we look prettier then?"
"Infinitely."
Bell colored rather angrily, and Phebe laughed outright. Mr. De Forest
favored her with a stare, chewed the end of his side-whiskers
reflectively a moment, then deliberately walked over to her. "Miss Lane,
I believe."
Phebe bowed, but somewhat stiffly.
"Excuse me," continued De Forest, imperturbably. "There doesn't seem
to be any one to introduce us, and we know perfectly well who we each
are, you know, and I wanted to ask about a mutual friend of
ours,--Miss Vernor."
Phebe brightened and softened instantly. "Oh!" she exclaimed, dropping
her work, "you know her? you have seen her? lately?"
"I know her, yes, quite well. I saw her some weeks since. I understood
then that there was a little talk of her coming up here this summer. One
of those fearful children, Olly, or Hal, or some one of the superfluous
young ones, was a little off condition,--not very well, you know,--and
the doctor said he mustn't go with the rest to the sea-shore, and she
mentioned bringing him up here to recruit. I heard her mention your name,
too, and didn't know but you might have heard something of it."
"I have, I have!" cried Phebe, her face all aglow, "She _is_ coming,--she
and Olly. She is going to stay with me. I wrote and begged her to."
"Ah, that will be very pleasant for you. Do you expect her soon?"
"To-morrow."
"Ah!" Mr. De Forest ruminated silently a moment. "She'll be bored to
death up here, won't she?" he asked, presently.
"Then she can go home again," replied Phebe, shortly.
"True, true," said her companion, thoughtfully. "I forgot that. And she
probably will. It would be like her to go if it bored her."
"Only there's Olly," said Phebe, grimly, the light fading out of her
face a little. "She'll have to stay for him."
"Oh, no. She can put him to board somewhere and leave him. Miss Vernor
doesn't concern herself overmuch with the young ones. They are an awful
nuisance to her."
"She does every thing for them. You can't know her," said Phebe,
indignantly. "Did you say you knew her well, Mr. De Forest?"
"I don't remember just what I said, Miss Lane, but it would have been the
truth if I did, and I generally speak the truth when it's equally
convenient. Yes, I do know Miss Vernor _very_ well, and I have worsted
her in a great many arguments,--you know her argumentative turn, perhaps?
If you will allow me, I will do myself the honor of calling upon her when
she comes,--and upon yourself, if I may have the pleasure."
"Not if you come with the intention of putting Gerald out of conceit with
Joppa. I want her to stay a long, long time."
"Don't be afraid, Miss Lane. I'll do my best to help keep her here, so
long, at least, as I stay myself. '_Aprés celà le déluge_.'"
"I don't speak French."
"Ah? No? I regret it. You might have assisted me in my genders. I am
never altogether sure of them."
"Mr. De Forest," called Bell, imperatively, from the other side of the
room, displeased at the defalcation of her knight, "I want to introduce
you to Miss Mudge."
Miss Mudge tried to make Bell understand by frantic pantomime that she
hadn't meant just now,--any time would do,--but Bell chose it should be
just now; and slightly lifting his eyebrows, Mr. De Forest took his
handsome person slowly back to Bell to make an almost impertinently
indifferent bow to the new claimant upon him.
Mr. Halloway had been standing near Phebe, too near not to overhear the
conversation, and he turned to her now quickly.
"So this accounts for your beaming face," he said in a low tone, as he
took a seat just back of her in the window niche. "The mysterious Gerald
_is_ really coming, then. I wondered what had happened as soon as I saw
you. Why did you not tell me?"
"I was only waiting till I had the chance," she answered, all the
brightness coming back into her bonny face as she smiled up at him.
"Do you think I could keep any thing so nice from you for long? It seems
to make every thing nicer when you know it too. She is coming
to-morrow,--only think,--to-morrow,--just twenty-one hours more now. I
can hardly wait!"
"It will be a great happiness to her, surely, to see you again,"
said Denham.
"That's what she writes in her letter. At least she says: 'I shall be
glad to see you again, Phebe, my dear' Isn't that nice? 'Phebe, my dear,'
she says. That is a great deal for Gerald to say."
"Is it? But I believe some young ladies are less effusive with their pens
than with their tongues."
"It isn't Gerald's nature ever to be effusive. But oh, I'm so glad she's
coming! I only got her letter last night. See, doesn't she write a nice
hand?" And cautiously, lest any one else should see too, Phebe slipped an
envelope into Denham's hand. He bent back behind the lace curtains to
inspect it.
"Do you generally carry about your letters in your pocket, Miss Phebe?"
"No, only Gerald's. I love so always to have something of hers near me.
Isn't it a nice hand?"
Halloway looked silently at the upright, angular, large script. "It's
legible, certainly."
"But you don't like it?"
"Miss Phebe, I am torn between conflicting truth and politeness. It is
like a man's hand, if I must say something."
"And so are her letters like a man's. Read it and see. Oh, she wouldn't
mind! There is nothing in it, and yet somehow it seems just like Gerald.
Do read it. Oh, I want you to. Please, please do."
And led half by curiosity, half by the eagerness in Phebe's pretty face,
Denham opened the letter and read, Phebe glancing over it with him as if
she couldn't bear to lose sight of it an instant.
"DEAR PHEBE," so ran the letter, "your favor of 9th inst. rec. I
had no idea of intruding ourselves upon you when I asked you to look
up rooms, but as you seem really to want us"--("seem!" whispered
Phebe, putting her finger on the word with a pout)--"I can only say
we shall be very glad to come to you. You may look for Olly and
myself Friday, July 15th, by the P.M. train. Olly isn't really ill, only
run down. He is as horrid a little bear as ever. All are well, and
started last week for Narragansett Pier. I shall rejoice to get away
from the art school and guilds, which keep on even in this intemperate
weather, and I shall be glad to see you again, Phebe, my dear,"
(Phebe looked up triumphantly in Denham's face as she reached the
words.) "Remember me to Mrs. Lane and Miss--, I can't think
of her name,--Aunt Lydia, I mean.
"Sincerely yours
"GERALDINE VERNOR,
"P.S.--Olly only drinks milk."
Phebe took back the letter and folded it up. "Well?" she said.
"Well?" said Denham, looking at her and smiling.
"It's just like her," declared Phebe. "It's so downright and to the
point. Gerald never wastes words."
"You said it was like a man's letter," said Denham. "But I must beg leave
to differ with you there. I don't think it is at all such a letter as _I_
would have written you, for instance."
"Of course not. It wouldn't be proper for you to say 'Phebe, my dear,' as
Gerald does. Yours would have to be a very dignified, pastoral letter."
"Yes, addressed to 'My Lamb,' which you couldn't object to in a pastoral
letter of course, and which sounds nearly as affectionate, blaming you
for having caused me to lose the valuable information I might have gained
about the Baroness Bunsen. I never got much farther than her birth in
that famous history. I see poor Miss Delano casting longing glances in
here. I'll smuggle her in among you young people."
He departed on his errand of mercy, and soon had the timid little old
maid in the more congenial atmosphere of the parlor, where little by
little, though in a very stealthy and underhand way, the talk grew more
general, and the restraint slackened more and more, until sewing and
reading were both forgotten and the fun became fast and furious,
culminating in the sudden appearance of Jake Dexter dressed up as an
ancient and altogether unlovely old woman, whom Dick Hardcastle presented
in a stage whisper as "Baroness Bunsen in the closing chapter," and who
forthwith proceeded to act out in dumb show the various events of that
admirable woman's life, as judiciously and sonorously touched upon by Mr.
Webb in the drawing-room opposite. Jake was a born actor, and having
"done up" the Baroness, he proceeded to "do up" several other noted
historical characters, not omitting a few less celebrated contemporaries
of his own, each representation better and truer to life than the last;
and winding up with snatching away their work from the young ladies' not
unwilling hands, and piling it in heaps on the floor around him, he sat
himself in the middle with an armful hugged close and an air of comically
mingled resignation and opulence, and announced himself as "a photo from
life of ye destitute poor of Joppa."
Mrs. Upjohn may have had suspicions that all was not going on precisely
as she had planned in that other half of her domains which she had
surrendered to Maria's feeble guardianship, but it certainly could not
be laid to her blame if young people would amuse themselves even at her
house. If they wilfully persisted in neglecting the means of grace she
had conscientiously provided for them, so much the worse for them, not
for her; and if Mr. Upjohn found the contemplation of Mrs. Bruce's
profile, and her occasional smiles at him as she bent over her ugly
work, not sufficient of an indemnity for his enforced silence, and
chose to sneak over to the young people's side and enjoy himself too,
as an inopportune and hearty guffaw from thence testified just at the
wrong moment, when Mr. Webb had reached the culminating point of the
Baroness' death, and was drawing tears from the ladies' eyes by the
irresistible pathos of his voice,--why, Mrs. Upjohn owned in her heart
that it was only what might be expected of him, and that she couldn't
help that either.
So at last the reading came to an end. Everybody said it had been
unprecedentedly delightful, and they should never forget that dear
Baroness so long as they lived, and they thought Mrs. Upjohn herself
might have sat for the original of the biography, so identical were her
virtues with those of the departed saint, and so exactly did she resemble
her in every particular except just in the outward circumstances of her
life. And Mrs. Upjohn modestly entreated them to desist drawing so
unworthy a comparison, and said it was an example of a life they should
each and all do well to imitate so far as in them lay, and then she went
about collecting the nightgowns, and (oh, cruellest of all!) inspecting
the button-holes. It was an excellent day's work, she reported, fanning
herself vigorously, and Miss Brooks, as champion button-hole-maker,
having made three more than any one else, should have the post of honor
and be taken in to supper by Mr. Upjohn, who was routed out from the
parlor for the purpose, very red in the face, and still convulsed with
laughter. Mrs. Bruce may have suspected this to be designed as a neat way
of cutting her out, but there is no knowing to what lengths a flippant
widow's imagination will not go, and any way Mr. Upjohn quite atoned
afterward for any temporary neglect, by paying her the most assiduous
attentions right in the face of his wife, who apparently did not care a
straw, and only thought her husband a little more foolish than usual. Did
not everybody know that it was only Mr. Upjohn's way, and that it did not
mean any thing?
And so the doors were thrown open, supper was announced, and Joppa, as it
swarmed around the loaded tables, felt that its hour of merited reward
was come; and Mr. Hardcastle, when at last he could eat and drink no
more, stood up and pronounced, in the name of the united assembly, that
Mrs. Upjohn's entertainment had been a very, very great success, as all
that dear Mrs. Upjohn undertook always was sure to be, and particularly
those devilled crabs were unapproachable for perfection. Nobody could
make him believe that even the Baroness Bunsen with all her learning
could ever have spiced them better.