"Isn't it delicious?" she cried. "I just want you to see us together—it is better than a play."
"And Jemima's spite is something to witness," added Elsie. "I know she will poison you yet, Mary Harrington."
"I am on the watch constantly," replied the widow. "I don't even engage a strange servant now for fear it should be one of the old maid's secret emissaries."
"You are as badly off as the Duke of Buckingham," said Mellen, laughing at Mrs. Harrington's pretended distress.
"It is dreadful, I assure you," she said, shaking her plumage of lace and gauze; "but it is very amusing, nevertheless."
"Of course, if you can annoy somebody," answered Mellen; "that is the very acme of female happiness."
"Oh, you barbarous creature!" cried the widow. "Ain't you ashamed to utter such atrocious sentiments! Mrs. Mellen, your husband has come back a perfect savage."
Everybody laughed—it never occurred to the widow it could be at her own airs and affectations, which were a very clumsy imitation of Elsie's childish grace; she was too thoroughly satisfied with her own powers of fascination to suppose it possible, even for an instant, that she could become a subject of amusement.
"After all, it is tiresome to inspire a grande passion," said she, with a theatrical drawl.
"No woman ought to be better able to decide," cried Elsie; "you have made enough in all conscience."