"You'll do nothing of the kind." Harriet had finished her breakfast and now rose majestically to her full height of five feet three inches (including her marceled pompadour and military heels). "You'll go straight to your room and write your Progressive Mothers' address. You may make light of our poverty and the humiliating dependence it entails on the hospitality of my cousin, Hiram——"
"Second cousin-in-law," gently corrected Horatio.
She swept the interruption aside. "You may even scoff at my relationship to Cousin Eleanor, but you shall not make light of this opportunity. It is not only an honor, Horatio, but there is also a——" Harriet hesitated.
"Honorarium?" suggested her husband.
She nodded. "I don't know how much, but we cannot afford to ignore it, and, besides, there is no knowing what it may lead to. Poor, dear Dr. Dibble must be in his eighties, and another of these attacks——"
Horatio raised a hand in protest. "My dear, I beg of you not to impute such mercenary motives to my anxiety about Dr. Dibble's health."
But Harriet was not listening, she was gazing with an expression of horror at Horatio's outstretched hand.
"Horatio!" she exclaimed.
He examined the back of his two hands, then turned them over and held them out with the air of a schoolboy expecting to be scolded.
"I assure you, my dear, I scrubbed them with all my might, but the water was so cold, so very cold," he shivered at the recollection.