“My dear woman, you're always seeing slights and insults. I tell you he's taken a shine to Phemie; and he's as good as four seats and a bouquet to that child next Wednesday evening, to say nothing of the eclat of getting this St. Simeon—what do you call him?—Stalactites?”
“Stylites,” suggested Mrs. Sol.
“Stylites, off from his pillar here. I'll have a paragraph in the paper, that the hermit crabs of Table Mountain—”
“Don't be a fool, Sol!”
“The hermit twins of Table Mountain bespoke the chaste performance.”
“One of them being the protector of the well-known Mornie Nixon,” responded Mrs. Sol, viciously accenting the name with her knitting-needles.
“Rosy, you're unjust. You're prejudiced by the reports of the town. Mr. Pinkney's interest in her may be a purely artistic one, although mistaken. She'll never make a good variety-actress: she's too heavy. And the boys don't give her a fair show. No woman can make a debut in my version of 'Somnambula,' and have the front row in the pit say to her in the sleepwalking scene, 'You're out rather late, Mornie. Kinder forgot to put on your things, didn't you? Mother sick, I suppose, and you're goin' for more gin? Hurry along, or you'll ketch it when ye get home.' Why, you couldn't do it yourself, Rosy!”
To which Mrs. Sol's illogical climax was, that, “bad as Rutherford might be, this Sunday-school superintendent, Rand, was worse.”
Rand and his companion returned late, but in high spirits. There was an unnecessary effusiveness in the way in which Euphemia kissed Mrs. Sol,—the one woman present, who UNDERSTOOD, and was to be propitiated,—which did not tend to increase Mrs. Sol's good humor. She had her basket packed all ready for departure; and even the earnest solicitation of Rand, that they would defer their going until sunset, produced no effect.
“Mr. Rand—Mr. Pinkney, I mean—says the sunsets here are so lovely,” pleaded Euphemia.