“Annoyed!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker again, savagely. “Annoyance is altogether too personal a term. It arouses all my loyalty to the society; that’s the way it impresses me.”
Of course this brought forth many protestations of the same sentiment from the rest of us. Then Mrs. Pitman ventured to ask if Mrs. Bunker didn’t think it would be well to send a committee to the doctor and ask him to “clear up a little.”
“The chair has no thoughts, Mrs. Pitman,” answered that body loftily. “I await a motion.”
I always second everybody else’s motion, but have never made one yet, in the meetings. Miss Scrapson, however, came to the fore, and it was presently decided that the president should appoint a committee to visit the doctor and his lady and reprove them.
“If that is really the pleasure of the Association,” said Mrs. Bunker, with a wave of her purple ostrich plume, “I will appoint Miss Allison” (that is my name), “a committee of one to call at the doctor’s house for this purpose. As you are one of the young ladies of the place, Irene, it would be in the way of your social duty at any rate. You can mingle business with pleasure.”
“Yes,—but Mrs. Bunker, I never could mingle things! Don’t ask me to go,” I implored. “I’m sure I shall make a failure of it. I don’t want to offend them, you know,—they may be nice people.”
“Nice people!” Mrs. Bunker compressed her lips into that peculiar stiff smile which means scorn, and closed her eyes slowly with her head tilted back.
“They certainly must be lax,” murmured Miss Scrapson,—”very lax.” Nobody, however, came to my rescue. I was evidently doomed to be the unhappy instrument of the Society’s revenge. I gave in and took my instructions as meekly as I could.
“The wife has an extremely youthful and inexperienced air,” said my mentor, “and undoubtedly needs a little judicious instruction. It will alarm her less to be confronted by a person of her own age. Our work is largely educational, you know, so do not antagonize her. Simply say to her something of this kind in gentle but firm tones: ‘My dear madam, do you not appreciate the beauty of this peaceful little village, and will you not bear your part henceforward in the maintenance of its order and symmetry?’ Such a method of speech would be better than to alarm her. And yet don’t fail to impress upon her that disorder simply cannot be.”
I acquiesced, with a slightly strangling sound, which the president did not notice, fortunately. It resulted from physical distress of a kind which is sometimes on these occasions, beyond control. It was with me yet, in a milder form, as I ascended the doctor’s steps that afternoon, card-case in hand, which last appendage seemed the most despicable mockery.