“Did you hear the row with my cousin? He was very impertinent; but all Bostonians are impertinent.”
The name Bostonian seemed to give her a slight sensation.
“You have been in Boston?” he asked.
“N—yes, and I, too, found Bostonians impertinent.” She gave him an appealing glance; then she added, after a pause, “I find New York quite different.”
Miss Perkins came in shortly after, much fatigued, and Archibald after dinner went over to the club, where he fell in with Hunnewell Hollis again, in spite of the fact that he did his best to avoid him. Hunnewell had found his yachting friends, and they had had a very good dinner. They were all very talkative—Somers, Billy Nahant, and Jack Chadwick. They were in flannel suits and yachting caps, and each was bronzed and sunburned to a fine copper hue.
“What is the name of the people who have taken your house?” asked Hunnewell, bluntly, after he had introduced Archibald to his friends.
“Miss Perkins and her niece, Miss Elvira Price,” replied Archibald, coldly.
Instantly Billy Nahant pricked up his ears. “Why,” he said, “isn’t she an actress? Didn’t she play in Boston last winter?”
“Who?” asked Archibald.
“Why, Elvira Price. She made quite a hit, I believe—her début too—at the Boston Theatre. She played to crowded houses exactly two weeks; at the end of that time, to everyone’s surprise, she went home to Vermont, whence she came, and she calmly gave up the stage forever!”