"Yes, indeed," continued Miss Clegg, "certainly—yes, I should say so, too. If they didn't get a fine shock over 'Liza Em'ly and her hotel and her reception and the whole thing, Mrs. Macy says she'll never know what a shock is when she sees it. Seems they was shoved into one end of a elevator without so much as by your leave and out the other end before they'd caught their breath, and then they found themselves in a room with flowers all tied up in banners, and Elijah, with his hair parted in the middle, passing cups of tea which a lady, with her muff on her head, was pouring out, while 'Liza Em'ly sat on a table swinging her feet in shoes she never bought in this town, Mrs. Macy'll take her Bible oath, and a dress that trained on the floor even from the table."
"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, that isn't anything," said Susan, "just you wait. Well, and so Mrs. Macy says you can maybe imagine their feelings when they found their two perfectly respectable and well brought up selves in the middle of such a kind of a party! One man and one girl was under the piano playing cat's cradle, while another man was doing a sum on the wallpaper with a hatpin. Mrs. Macy says she wouldn't have been surprised at nothing after that, you'd think, but she says when it comes to 'Liza Em'ly nowadays, you don't know even what you're thinkin', for you'd suppose 'Liza Em'ly would at least have looked ashamed of her feet and her train. Instead of that, she just clapped her hands and said, 'Hello, home-folks,' which nearly sent Mrs. Fisher over backwards. Elijah saw them then, and he had the good manners to drop a teacup, but even he didn't look anywhere near as used up as in Mrs. Macy's opinion a man away from business with his hair parted in the middle in the middle of the afternoon had ought to look. He gave them chairs though, and they set down between a young lady as was smoking a cigarette and another as was very carefully powdering herself in a little mirror set in her pocketbook. Just then there was a noise like a awful crash and a hailstorm, and after they'd both jumped and Mrs. Macy come near dislocating her hip, they see that a man was beginning on the piano. Well, Mrs. Macy says such piano-playing her one hope is as she may be going to be spared hereafter; she says he'd skitter up the piano with both hands, and then he'd bang his way back to where he belonged, and every time he hit the very bottom, he'd give his head a flop and jerk down another lot of hair over his eyes. Mrs. Macy says she never see a man with so much loose hair where he could manage it, for he kept getting down more and more till he looked like a cocoanut and nothing else, so help Mrs. Macy, and then, when he was completely hid, he hit the piano four cracks and folded his arms and was done."
"Mercy on—!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"I should say so," continued Miss Clegg, "and Mrs. Macy says everybody clapped like mad, and then 'Liza Em'ly come to earth and went and threw her arms around his neck, which to Mrs. Macy's order of thinking, didn't look much like she was going to marry Elijah. And then, before they could shake hands or say good-by or do a thing, a boy came in with a lot of telegrams on a tray, and while 'Liza Em'ly was fixing half a spectacle in one eye to read 'em, a young lady dressed in snakeskins, and very little else, jumped into the room right over the backs of their two chairs in a most totally unlooked-for way, and then began to spin about and wriggle here and there and in and out generally, and Mrs. Fisher got up and said they really must go, and Elijah showed 'em to the door with the lady in snakeskins making figure eights around them all three and 'Liza Em'ly throwing a rose at them and kissing her hand till somehow they got into the hall. They walked down flights of stairs then till they thought there never would be a bottom anywhere, and then they looked at each other, and after a while they got where they could speak, and then they came home."
"Well, wha—?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"Me, too," said Susan, "I think it's awful! And the worst of it is for her to be the minister's daughter. Think of it! They bought a paper as had her picture on it and a account of the reception as they'd just been at. It said Herr Schnitzel Beerstein played, so they know his name now, and Madame Kalouka S-k-z-o-h danced, so when it comes to her name, they ain't much better off than they were before. Wherever they looked they see posters of Deacon Tooker Talks, and people in the cars was all discussing the book. Two ministers is going to take it for a text to-morrow, and the candy stores has all got little candy boxes like beds with a chocolate drop for Deacon Tooker and a gum-drop for his wife."
"Well, wha—" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"I don't know," said Miss Clegg. "The book's made right out of this community, and since I've read it myself, I can see who every one is except Deacon Tooker. I can't see who Deacon Tooker is, for we haven't got anybody like him. He's talking the whole time; in fact, the book is all what he says about everything, and all his wife ever does is to wake up when he shakes her and then go to sleep again. The idea's very remarkable of a man laying awake chattering to himself all night long, but I never heard of any such person here. Our only deacon is Deacon White, and he never talks a tall."
"I wonder if the min—" began Mrs. Lathrop.