“I have often thought of it,” sighed Mrs. Grindstone. “Of course, there’d be some trouble to get Mr. Grindstone into it. He’s sort o’ set in his ways, and thinks it a sin to light more than one gas burner in a room. But we might get over him, if there was only any excuse to give a party—any brides or explorers or great folks that we knew, coming to town, that had to be entertained.”
“That’s it,” said Miss Cornelia. “We are as dull as ditchwater in Sutphen—unless Annetta stirs us up,” she added, reluctantly.
At this moment, enter Mrs. Chauncey Stratton, plump, rustling, well-dressed, with red cheeks like a china doll, self-satisfaction in every line of her face, in every movement of her person. At the bare sight of her the two conspirators shrunk into their shells. Old Mrs. Bennett, who had returned to the perusal of a column devoted to the wants of domestic service, alone preserved her equilibrium.
“My dear girls,” exclaimed the oracle, dropping into her chair at the literary table, “if I am late, put it down to the claims of excessive correspondence. And as I see you’ve finished with the books, let me lose no time in informing you that I have just had the good fortune to conclude successfully a negotiation for a lecture before our club from no less a literary light than Timothy Bludgeon, who is at the —— Hotel in New York.”
“Bludgeon, the English author!” replied Miss Cornelia, faintly. “Not that I’ve much opinion of his works, since he refused me his autograph for my quilt, and even sent me a very tart letter through his secretary. But, still, he is the lion of the day.”
“Precisely,” observed Mrs. Stratton calmly; “so I made up my mind to get him—and I did!”
Mrs. Grindstone made a series of muffled sounds that might have been applause. In her heart she was struck with jealous indignation. Quick as a flash she and Cornelia saw open before them another vista in which Annetta would walk glorified, they remaining part of the inconspicuous crowd ranged on either side of her.
“I asked him to come for our meeting on the fifteenth,” remarked Mrs. Stratton, with the same exasperating composure born of certainty. “And he could just fit it in on his way to Boston. He will arrive on the 11 A.M. train on the fifteenth, and leave next morning at the same time, thus allowing to Sutphen just twenty-four hours. I have decided to give him a dinner in the evening, and to change the hour for the lecture to the afternoon.”