"The fact is, Aunt Maria ought to have had a great family of her own—twelve or thirteen, to say the least. If Providence had vouchsafed her eight or nine ramping, roaring boys, and a sprinkling of girls, she would have been a splendid woman and we should have had better times."
"She puts me in mind of the story of the persistent broomstick that would fetch water," said Harry; "we are likely to be drowned out by her."
"Well, we can accept her for a whetstone to sharpen up our Christian graces on," said Eva. "So, let her go. I was talking over our projected evening with Alice, and we spent some time discussing that."
"When are you going to begin?" said Henry. "'Well begun is half done,' you know."
Said Eva, "I've been thinking over what day is best, and talking about it with Mary. Now, we can't have it Monday, there's the washing, you know; and Tuesday and Wednesday come baking and ironing."
"Well, then, what happens Thursday?"
"Well, then, it's precisely Thursday that Mary and I agreed on. We both made up our minds that it was the right day. One wouldn't want it on Friday, you know, and Saturday is too late; besides, Mr. St. John never goes out Saturday evenings."
"But what's the objection to Friday?"
"Oh, the unlucky day. Mary wouldn't hear of beginning anything on Friday, you know. Then, besides, Mr. St. John, I suspect, fasts every Friday. He never told me so, of course, but they say he does; at all events, I'm sure he wouldn't come of a Friday evening, and I want to be sure and have him, of all people. Now, you see, I've planned it all beautifully. I'm going to have a nice, pretty little tea-table in one corner, with a vase of flowers on it, and I shall sit and make tea. That breaks the stiffness, you know. People talk first about the tea and the china, and whether they take cream and sugar, and so on, and the gentlemen help the ladies. Then Mary will make those delicate little biscuits of hers and her charming sponge-cake. It's going to be perfectly quiet, you see—from half-past seven till eleven—early hours and simple fare, 'feast of reason and flow of soul.'"
"Quite pastoral and Arcadian," said Harry. "When we get it going it will be the ideal of social life. No fuss, no noise; all the quiet of home life with all the variety of company; people seeing each other till they get really intimate and have a genuine interest in meeting each other; not a mere outside, wild beast show, as it is when people go to parties to gaze at other people and see how they look in war-paint."