The only untoward event that happened this afternoon (and that wasn't untoward through any fault of ours) was when Mrs. Howard, an immensely tall, raw-boned Scribbler, happened to speak in complimentary terms of dear Mrs. Clayborne's lovely sylvan room.
"I am so sensitive to rooms," she said, fluttering her rich lace scarf toward one corner of the apartment which she particularly liked, "and the least false note gets so on my nerves!" She was sitting alone upon a small sofa—alone, yet not alone, for Waterloo's little, but loud, mechanical bug was also sitting on the sofa, although his presence was unsuspected by Mrs. Howard.
This amazing insect is like love in the springtime, it only takes a touch to set it a-fluttering, for it seems always to be wound up. The heavy lace scarf hanging from Mrs. Howard's long arms and creeping over its back and sprawling legs was quite enough. It caught in the silken fabric with its sudden zizzing, clicking noise; and it climbed steadily upward, toward the lady's stalwart, but nervous, shoulders.
The meshes of the lace concealed the true identity of the intruder, and Mrs. Howard no doubt considered herself to be in the clutches of some poisonous and persistent spider. She shook her scarf; she tried to slay the monster with her book of minutes; she screamed. Finally, jerking the scarf from her shoulders and flinging it into the middle of the floor, she bravely trampled the "thing" underfoot, and thus she silenced it. Then she subsided upon the sofa, pale and exhausted.
"Let's have the sandwiches—quick," Cousin Eunice whispered to me, and I fled to the dining-room to see that everything was in readiness.
Under the genial influence of the buffet luncheon I found that they all unbent somewhat—enough to get down to commonplaces, even discussing such things as husbands, wall-paper and jap-a-lac.
I vibrated between the scene of gaiety in the house and the more enjoyable frog funeral, which was in full blast in the back yard.
Grapefruit had taken down one of the kitchen window shades to make a tent, under which there was an attractive tub of water, with several members of the bereaved frog family sporting heartlessly around in its muddy depths.
I had not thought of danger, although I had seen Waterloo dabbling in this tub pretty constantly during the last sad rites; but after the final Scribbler had departed and his weary mother came upon the scene, little Waterloo was ordered peremptorily in the house, and dire predictions were made.
"Oh, you'll be sure to have croup to-night," Cousin Eunice said dejectedly, as she followed Waterloo up the stairs and rubbed down his dripping little hands and arms with a Turkish towel. This task being finished to her maternal satisfaction, she turned to me with a look of unutterable weariness.