It was an uncomfortable meal. Cousin Mehitable refused to be conciliating. She examined the bride through her lorgnette, and I could see that Mrs. Weston was angered while she was apparently fascinated. George was taciturn, and I could not make things go smoothly, though I tried with all my might. By the time the guests went, I felt that my nerves were fiddlestrings.
"Well," Cousin Mehitable pronounced, as soon as the door had closed behind them, "of all the dowdy frumps I ever saw, she is the worst. I never saw anybody so overdressed."
"She was overdressed," I assented; "but you behaved horribly. You frightened her into complete shyness."
"Shyness! Humph!" was her response. "She has no more shyness than a brass monkey. That's vulgar, of course, Ruth. I meant it to be to match the subject."
I put in a weak defense of Mrs. Weston, although I honestly do find her a most unsatisfactory person. She is self-conscious, and somehow she does not seem to me to be very frank. Very likely, moreover, she had been disconcerted by the too evident snubs of my unmanageable cousin.
"If I snubbed her," was the uncompromising rejoinder with which a suggestion of this sort was met, "I'm sure I am not ashamed of it. To think of her saying that you evidently wanted to show Tuskamuck how to do things in style! Does she think any person with style would let her into the house?"
I thanked her for the compliment to me.
"Oh, bother!" she retorted. "You are only a goose, with no sense at all. To think you once thought of marrying that country booby yourself!"
I was too much hurt to reply, and probably my face showed my feeling, for Cousin Mehitable burst into a laugh.
"You needn't look so grumpy about it," she cried. "All's well that ends well. You're safely out of that, thank heaven!"