"Is her name 'Eleanor'? I think it's a perfectly beautiful name! No, I'd love to give her my room! Mother, she won't be as old as you are for eleven years, and that's as long as I have been alive. So I won't worry about Maurice just yet. Mother, may I have two helpings? When are they coming?"
"They haven't been asked yet," her father said, grimly. "I'm not going to concoct a letter, Mary, for a week. Let 'em worry! Maurice, confound him!—has never worried in his life. Everything rolls off him like water off a duck's back. It will do him good to chew nails for a while. I wish I was asleep!"
"Why, father!" Edith said, aghast; "I don't believe you want the Bride!"
"You're a very intelligent young person," her father said, scratching a match under the table and lighting a cigar.
"But, my dear," his wife said, "has it occurred to you that it may be as unpleasant for the Bride to come, as for you to have her? Henry! That's the third since breakfast!"
"Wrong for once, Mrs. Houghton. It's the fourth."
"I want the Bride," said Edith.
Her mother laughed. "Come along, honey," she said, putting her hand on her husband's shoulder, "and tell me what to say to her."
"Say she's a harpy, and tell her to go to the—"
"Henry!"