[CHAPTER XVIII.]
RAKING UP THE FIRE.
The cream of an evening company is the latter end of it, after the more ceremonious have slipped away and only "we and our folks" remain to croon and rake up the fire.
Mr. and Mrs. Van Arsdel, Angelique, and Marie went home in the omnibus. Alice staid to spend the night with Eva, and help put up the portfolios, and put back the plants, and turn the bower back into a workroom, and set up the vases of flowers in a cool place where they could keep till morning; because, you know—you who are versed in these things—that flowers in December need to be made the most of, in order to go as far as possible.
Bolton yet lingered in his arm-chair, in his favorite corner, gazing placidly at the coals of the fire. Dr. Campbell was solacing himself, after the unsatisfied longings of the evening, with seeing how his own article looked in print, and Jim Fellows was helping miscellaneously in setting back flower-pots, re-arranging books, and putting chairs and tables, that had been arranged festively, back into humdrum household places. Meanwhile, the kind of talk was going on that usually follows a social venture—a sort of review of the whole scene and of all the actors.
"Well, Doctor, what do you think of our rector?" said Eva, tapping his magazine briskly.
He lowered his magazine and squared himself round gravely.
"That fellow hasn't enough of the abdominal to carry his brain power," he said. "Splendid head—a little too high in the upper stories and not quite heavy enough in the basement. But if he had a good broad, square chest, and a good digestive and blood-making apparatus, he'd go. The fellow wants blood; he needs mutton and beef, and plenty of it. That's what he needs. What's called common sense is largely a matter of good diet and digestion."