"Not have Joe?" wheezed Mrs. Hearty.
"Not ask Uncle Joe?" Millie had exclaimed in a tone that her father thought scarcely filial.
"He is not interested in parties," Mr. Hearty had explained feebly.
"We can't leave Joe out," panted Mrs. Hearty with a decisiveness unusual to her. "Why, he'll be the life and soul of the evening."
This was exactly what Mr. Hearty feared; but seeing that his women-folk were united against him, and after a further feeble protest, he conceded the point, and the Bindles received their invitation. Mr. Hearty had, however, taken the precaution of "dropping a hint" to Mrs. Bindle, the "hint" in actual words being: "I hope that if Joseph comes he—he won't——"
"I'll see that he doesn't," was Mrs. Bindle's reply, uttered with a snap of the jaws that had seemed to reassure her brother-in-law.
II
Mrs. Bindle was engaged in removing curl-papers from her front hair. On the bed lay her best dress of black alpaca with a bright green satin yoke covered with black lace. Beside it lay her best bonnet, also of black, an affair of a very narrow gauge and built high up at the back, having the appearance of being several sizes too small for its wearer.
Mrs. Bindle was dressing with great care and deliberation for Mr. Hearty's party. Her conception of dress embodied the middle-class ideals of mid-Victorian neatness, blended with a standard of modesty and correctness peculiarly her own.
It had cost Mrs. Bindle many anxious days of thought before she had been able to justify to herself the green satin yoke in her best dress. With her, to be fashionable was to be fast. A short skirt and a pneumonia-blouse were in her eyes the contrivances of the devil to show what no modest woman would think of exhibiting to the public gaze.