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 soiree,” 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 blase 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. ‘Âpres
cela lé deluge.’”
“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.