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ROBERTS.
“Well, you see, I had no excuse. I hated to say an engagement when I hadn’t any.”

LAWTON.
“Oh, I understand. You WANTED to come. We all do, when Mrs. Roberts will let us.” He goes and sits down by MRS. ROBERTS, who has taken a more provisional pose on the sofa. “Mrs. Roberts, you’re the only woman in Boston who could hope to get people, with a fireside of their own–or a register–out to a Christmas dinner. You know I still wonder at your effrontery a little?”

MRS. ROBERTS,
laughing: “I knew I should catch you if I baited my hook with your old friend.”

LAWTON.
“Yes, nothing would have kept me away when I heard Bemis was coming. But he doesn’t seem so inflexible in regard to me. Where is he?”

MRS. ROBERTS.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I’d no idea I was giving such a formal dinner. But everybody, beginning with my own aunt, seems to think it a ceremonious occasion. There are only to be twelve. Do you know the Millers?”

LAWTON.
“No, thank goodness! One meets some people so often that one fancies one’s weariness of them reflected in their sympathetic countenances. Who are these acceptably novel Millers?”

MRS. ROBERTS.
“Do explain the Millers to the doctor, Edward.”

ROBERTS,
standing on the hearth-rug, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets: “They board.”

LAWTON.
“Genus. That accounts for their willingness to flutter round your evening lamp when they ought to be singeing their wings at their own. Well, species?”

ROBERTS.
“They’re very nice young newly married people. He’s something or other of some kind of manufactures. And Mrs. Miller is disposed to think that all the other ladies are as fond of him as she is.”

MRS. ROBERTS.
“Oh! That is not so, Edward.”

LAWTON.
“You defend your sex, as women always do. But you’ll admit that, as your friend, Mrs. Miller may have this foible.”

MRS. ROBERTS.
“I admit nothing of the kind. And we’ve invited another young couple who haven’t gone to housekeeping yet–the Curwens. And HE has the same foible as Mrs. Miller.” MRS. ROBERTS takes out her handkerchief, and laughs into it.

LAWTON.
“That is, if Mrs. Miller has it, which we both deny. Let us hope that Mrs. Miller and Mr. Curwen may not get to making eyes at each other.”

ROBERTS.
“And Mr. Bemis and his son complete the list. Why, Agnes, there are only ten. You said there were twelve.”

MRS. ROBERTS.
“Well, never mind. I meant ten. I forgot that the Somerses declined.” A ring is heard. “Ah! THAT’S Aunt Mary.” She runs into the vestibule, and is heard exclaiming without: “Why, Mrs. Miller, is it you? I thought it was my aunt. Where is Mr. Miller?”

MRS. MILLER,
entering the drawing-room arm in arm with her hostess: “Oh, he’ll be here directly. I had to let him run back for my fan.”

MRS. ROBERTS.
“Well, we’re very glad to have you to begin with. Let me introduce Dr. Lawton.”

MRS. MILLER,
in a polite murmur: “Dr. Lawton.” In a louder tone: “O Mr. Roberts!”

LAWTON.
“You see, Roberts? The same aggrieved surprise at meeting you here that I felt.”

MRS. MILLER.
“What in the world do you mean?”

LAWTON.
“Don’t you think that when a husband is present at his wife’s dinner party he repeats the mortifying superfluity of a bridegroom at a wedding?”