Mrs. Van Dam smiled, and I felt gauche, like a schoolgirl. I am so impulsive!
"It was all delightful!" cried Kitty; "and yet—while you were my chum, Helen, I did think you rather good-looking!"
"You find yourself mistaken?" the General inquired.
"Oh, no-o-o; not exactly; a beautiful girl, certainly; but—oh, I could have made pincushions of some of those pudgy women, nibbling wafers, and delivering themselves of lukewarm appreciations! 'Too tall'—'too short'—'too dark'—'too light'; 'I like your height bettah, my deah.' Helen, you dairymaid, powder! Plaster over that 'essentially improbable' colour."
Mrs. Van Dam broke out laughing at Kitty's mimicry. I wish the child wouldn't let her hair straggle in front of her ears and look so harum-scarum.
"I doubt if we have had many harsh critics," said Miss Baker.
"Not a thing to criticise," cried Aunt Frank, entering just then and catching the last word. "Everybody so interested in Nelly! Bake, if you'd only come earlier, I'd have been perfectly satisfied."
They say that Uncle Timothy can never be coaxed home to one of his wife's receptions, but he answered with great solemnity, as he loomed up behind the little woman:—
"I am privileged to be here, even at the eleventh hour. I could not wholly deny myself the sight of so much youth and bloom."
"Don't be hypocritical, Judge," said the General reprovingly. "You're too big and honest to achieve graceful deceit. But before I go—I've seats for the Opera Monday night in Mother's box. Miss Winship must come, and—" her glance deliberated briefly—"and Milly."