_Maggie_, bringing in a bundle: "Something a District Messenger
brought. Will you sign for it, ma'am?"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "You sign, Clarence. If I know anything about the
look and the feel of a bundle, this _is_ another bath-robe, but I
shall soon see." While she is cutting the string and tearing the
wrappings away, Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakes
out the folds of the robe. "Well, upon my word, I should think there
was conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who has
had the effrontery-- What's on it?"
_Fountain_, reading from the card which had fallen out of the garment
to the floor: "'With Christmas greetings from Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby.'"
_Mrs. Fountain_, dropping the robe and seizing the card: "_Mrs._
Arthur J. Gibby! Well, upon my word, this _is_ impudence. It's not
only impudence, it's indelicacy. And I had always thought she was the
very embodiment of refinement, and I've gone about saying so. Now I
shall have to take it back. The idea of a lady sending a bath-robe to
a gentleman! What next, I wonder! What right has Mrs. Gibby to send
you a bath-robe? Don't prevaricate! Remember that the truth is the
only thing that can save you. Matters must have gone pretty far, when
a woman could send you anything so--intimate. What are you staring at
with that paper? You needn't hope to divert my mind by--"
_Fountain_, giving her the paper in which the robe came: "Seems to be
for _Mrs._ Clarence Fountain."
_Mrs. Fountain_, snatching it from him: "What! It is, it is! Oh, poor
dear Lilly! How can you ever forgive me? She saw me looking at it
to-day at Shumaker's, and it must have come into her head in despair
what else to get me. But it was a perfect inspiration--for it was just
what I was longing for. Why"--laughing hysterically while she holds up
the robe, and turns it this way and that--"I might have seen at a
glance that it wasn't a man's, with this lace on and this silk hood,
and"--she hurries into it, and pulls it forward, looking down at
either side--"it's just the right length, and if it was made for me it
couldn't fit me better. What a joke I _shall_ have with Lilly, when I
tell her about it. I sha'n't spare myself a bit!"
_Fountain_: "Then I hope you'll spare me. I have some little delicacy
of feeling, and I don't like the notion of a lady's giving me a
bath-robe. It's--intimate. I don't know where you picked up your girl
friends."
_Mrs. Fountain_, capering about joyfully: "Oh, how funny you are,
darling! But go on. I don't mind it, now. And you may be glad you've
got off so easily. Only now if there are any more bath-robes--" A
timid rap is heard at the door. "Come in, Maggie!" The door is slowly
set ajar, then flung suddenly wide open, and Jim and Susy in their
night-gowns rush dancing and exulting in.