"Maybe you can get the marble out," I said, bringing the coffee-pot to Rufe, and he worked over it for a full half-hour.
"Oh, it's ruined," he said disgustedly, when he saw that it wasn't coming out. "Of course the coffee won't pour! It will just drop, as reluctantly as tears at a rich uncle's funeral."
"Why, we hadn't thought to try," Cousin Eunice said, and I took the thing from Rufe's hand and sped with it to the kitchen sink.
"It pours," I announced triumphantly.
"Then your glory as a hostess is saved," Rufe comforted her.
"But who wants to go through life with a marble up the coffee-pot spout?" she persisted, with little worried lines between her eyes.
"Besides it will be sure to taste like marbles," I added.
The little worried lines between Cousin Eunice's blue eyes grew deeper in the early afternoon as the ices and cakes were delayed an hour in coming, and we found that Waterloo had sprinkled frazzled wheat biscuit all over the chairs and floor of the reception-room, just as the door-bell was ringing to announce the first Scribbler. Then she grew cheerful again when some of her best friends among the club members arrived, and only slightly flurried at the advent of Mrs. Barnette.
I stayed in the presence of the learned body long enough to hear with my own ears that they were not discussing anything too deep for me to understand, everything being spoken in plain English; but this happened to be a business meeting as well as an occasion for social enjoyment, so when the time for election of officers drew near I fled, fearing at least Esperanto—if not actual blows.
I was present once at a meeting of mother's missionary society when this ordeal had to be gone through with, and I shall never forget the injured expression and cutting accents of the secretary pro tem. when she found that the office was not permanently hers.