"Champagne standard," I interrupted.
"I don't know what you mean." Maria has all the virtues, but no sense of humour.
"Then, for goodness' sake, why have her come out at all?"
Maria shuddered and looked cautiously about. Nancy had vanished.
"I'd die of mortification if she didn't marry. I won't have her turn on me and say I hadn't given her a chance."
"But, Maria, you married your good and prosperous Samuel without coming out. That didn't frighten him away! The highest standard your parents ever aspired to was cider, and that only on state occasions."
"That is all changed," said my unhappy friend. "We have got to—"
"Pretend; that's just it, Maria! But why don't you give up pretending and be happy? Did our parents ever pretend? They didn't. Think of your father's simple home and his big bank account, and then think of your Samuel with all his expenses and his cares."
But Maria was not to be convinced by argument—she was completely crushed by the Perkinses not having come, and she declared obstinately that her supreme duty in life was to get Nancy married—well if possible, but at any rate married.