A suppressed titter from one of the girls had the unfortunate tendency to increase Mrs. Wilbur's pique.
She answered curtly that certainly Mrs. Sanderson had the first claim upon her son. "Mr. Eastman is a delightful partner, and I am exceptionally favored in the cut," she added, with spirit.
"Why, Mrs. Wilbur," exclaimed a girl with baby-blue eyes and a sympathetic costume, embellished by infant devices; "how dare you perpetrate a pun? You are surely not ignorant of the punishment which fits such a crime?"
"While you, my dear, have yet to learn of penalties arranged for young women who can not distinguish between a pun and a simile," Mrs. Wilbur replied.
Mrs. Sanderson, perceiving that the air was becoming tinctured with personalities, declared that there were also penalties for being disagreeable.
"Come," she said, "let us resist the desire to quarrel. I am sure that Mrs. Wilbur and Sidney are both satisfied, they have simply been misunderstood; and under the circumstances it becomes a polite duty to change the subject."
As the lady finished her tactful and decisive rejoinder, she took from the table a package which had just arrived by express from New York.
"A box of chocolate creams for the one who guesses my Christmas gift," she said, graciously, holding above the throng a long, narrow package, that was certainly not suggestive of any particular thing.
"Each person shall have three guesses, which Mrs. Wilbur will kindly record."