"We shall have to see her, Archie," she said. "You see, I couldn't say I was out. She was very persistent, and pushed her way in. I was obliged to ask her into the drawing-room. She is"—reading the card—"Miss Priscilla Perfoozle."
"A cook!" I exclaimed joyously. "Oh, Letitia, I'm so glad!"
"No, Archie. She is Miss Priscilla Perfoozle, representing"—again reading the card—"the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks of New York City."
I thought Letitia was joking—that, perchance, a horrible sense of humor was sprouting. We had dined out, most pleasantly, and were temporarily lulled into an agreeable lethargy of endurance. If this were a jest, it was certainly a very sorry one. I sprang up and looked at the card. There was no deception. It was, as Letitia said, the pasteboard of "Miss Priscilla Perfoozle, representing the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Cooks of New York City."
"What—impertinence!" I exclaimed, and the little dash between the two words signifies a profane expression that never before, during our short married life, had I been tempted to use.
Letitia flushed. "Don't, dear," she said. "We must see her. It can't do any harm, for we have nothing to do. And, Archie, please don't be rude, or impolite. Remember, I beg of you, that you are in your own house."
I always was when my system simply pined for a bit of impoliteness. Whenever I ached to be rude, I was reminded that I was at home. It was most exasperating. However, I promised Letitia that there should be no outbreak; that I would be as suave as I could, and that Miss Priscilla Perfoozle should escape with all her bones intact—and the sooner the better.
We found her seated by the tiger-head, over which I firmly believed and hoped that she had tripped, for she was rubbing her shin. She was a large, gaunt, yellow spinster, with a loose, flappy mouth, that looked as though it should have been buttoned up when she was not using it. She wore black silk, like the ruined ladies in melodrama, and a neat bonnet, fastened under her chin by velvet strings.
She rose, as we entered, and unchained a smile. It was one of those smiles that some Christians call loving. Her unbuttoned mouth—even a hook-and-eye on each lip would have been most serviceable—revealed a picturesque of the falsest sort of false teeth (this style ten dollars), but she was not a bit abashed. I felt perfectly convinced that she was determined to love us—that, even if we threw a vase at her, she would still consider us ineffably dear. She extended her hand to each of us—a hand in a black glacé kid glove that was too long for her fingers.
"Be seated," said Letitia, with much unnecessary dignity.