'See heah! Would this be the Ordeh of the Gyartah?' one said, pointing.
'I presoom likely. No! The Garter has "Honey swore"--I know that much. This is "Tria juncta" something.'
'Oh, what's that cunning little copper cross with "For Valurr"?' a third cried.
'Say! Look at here!' said the young man at the bookcase. 'Here's a first edition of Handley Cross and a Beewick's Birds right next to it--just like so many best sellers. Look, Maidie!'
The girl beneath the picture half turned her body but not her eyes.
'You don't tell me!' she said slowly. 'Their women amounted to something after all.'
'But Woman's scope, and outlook was vurry limmutted in those days,' one of the matrons put in, from the piano.
'Limmutted? For her? If they whurr, I guess she was the limmut. Who was she? Peters, whurr's the cat'log?'
A thin butler, in charge of two footmen removing the tea-batteries, slid to a table and handed her a blue-and-qilt book. He was button-holed by one of the men behind the harp, who wished to get a telephone call through to Edinburgh.
'The local office shuts at six,' said Peters. 'But I can get through to'--he named some town--'in ten minutes, sir.'