“Did you ever hear of such impertinence! and in your own house, too!” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “What did the other members of the society say?”
“I don’t know. I resigned, by telephone, as soon as Tom and the doctor succeeded in bringing me out of my fainting fit.”
“And no wonder,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, sympathetically. “And yet, people complain that we take so little interest in the poor! Only a real philanthropist can appreciate the rebuffs we receive. The only thing which helps us to bear them, is the knowledge that we are doing such incalculable good.”
“It is very sweet and good of you to feel so,” sighed the girl with the eyeglasses. “I don’t know that I am quite so magnanimous, myself. Oh, Catharine, dear; you were speaking of Mr. Rocksby the other day. Did you ever hear the end of his affair with Florence?”
“Why, no,” said the girl with the classic profile. “I only knew that it had an end. How on earth did you find out about it?”
“I heard that she and Effie had fallen out, and I asked Effie all about it. Of course she was glad enough to tell. It seems that there was a dance at the club in Arcadia, and Florence went out to stay with the Brownstones and attend it. Mr. Rocksby happened to meet her at the station, and went out with her, intending to return by the next train. It turned out that there was no train back until midnight, so the Brownstones invited him to dine and go to the dance with them. They even brought out a dress coat of Mr. Brownstone’s for him to wear, and Florence told Effie that he looked as if he weighed twenty pounds less when he put it on.”
“It’s really wonderful the way people always help Florence along,” sighed the girl with the classic profile. “Nobody ever does such things for me.”
“I fancy Florence wishes they hadn’t for her, dear. Well, he was lovely to her at the dance, and after a while he coaxed her out on the balcony for a quiet talk. Before she fairly knew what he was about, he had fallen heavily on his knees and said, ‘Florence, I—’ when she heard the queerest sound, and he sprang to his feet, with his hand on his back!”
“Good gracious, I hope the poor old soul hadn’t hurt himself?”
“No; I believe not. But he had split Mr. Brownstone’s dress coat from top to bottom. And though Florence tried her very best, she never could coax him to finish the sentence he had just begun!”