"I did not know I was keeping you so," he said. "Our theme was a fascinating one. Will you wait a moment, and let me make ready to see you safely home?"
But it appeared, on opening the door, that Nellis Mitchell occupied an easy-chair in the parlor, just across the hall.
"I'm a patient young man, and at your service," he said, coming toward them as they emerged. "Please give me credit for promptness. I was here at the half hour."
As they walked home, Nellis with his sister on one arm, and Flossy Shipley on the other, he said:
"Now, what am I to understand by this sudden and violent intimacy at the parsonage? Miss Flossy, my sister has hitherto made yearly calls of two seconds' duration on the doctor's sister when she is not home to receive them."
"A great many things are to be different from what they have hitherto been," Flossy said, with a soft little laugh.
"So I begin to perceive."
"Nell," said Eurie, turning back when she was half way up the stairs, having said good-night, "are you going to help them with those tableaux?"
"Not much," said Nellis.
And Eurie, as she went on, said: