"She was here this afternoon, and I should have said she had come to see how bad she could make us feel.
I declare I never felt so put down in my life by anybody.""Why, what did she do? What did she say?" Lapham was ready, in his dense pride, to resent any affront to his blood, but doubtful, with the evidence of this invitation to the contrary, if any affront had been offered.Mrs.Lapham tried to tell him, but there was really nothing tangible;and when she came to put it into words, she could not make out a case.Her husband listened to her excited attempt, and then he said, with judicial superiority, "I guess nobody's been trying to make you feel bad, Persis.
What would she go right home and invite you to dinner for, if she'd acted the way you say?"In this view it did seem improbable, and Mrs.Lapham was shaken.She could only say, "Penelope felt just the way I did about it."Lapham looked at the girl, who said, "Oh, I can't prove it! I begin to think it never happened.I guess it didn't.""Humph!" said her father, and he sat frowning thoughtfully a while--ignoring her mocking irony, or choosing to take her seriously."You can't really put your finger on anything," he said to his wife, "and it ain't likely there is anything.Anyway, she's done the proper thing by you now."Mrs.Lapham faltered between her lingering resentment and the appeals of her flattered vanity.She looked from Penelope's impassive face to the eager eyes of Irene.
"Well--just as you say, Silas.I don't know as she WASso very bad.I guess may be she was embarrassed some----""That's what I told you, mamma, from the start,"interrupted Irene."Didn't I tell you she didn't mean anything by it? It's just the way she acted at Baie St.Paul, when she got well enough to realise what you'd done for her!"Penelope broke into a laugh."Is that her way of showing her gratitude? I'm sorry I didn't understand that before."Irene made no effort to reply.She merely looked from her mother to her father with a grieved face for their protection, and Lapham said, "When we've done supper, you answer her, Persis.Say we'll come.""With one exception," said Penelope.
"What do you mean?" demanded her father, with a mouth full of ham."Oh, nothing of importance.Merely that I'm not going."Lapham gave himself time to swallow his morsel, and his rising wrath went down with it."I guess you'll change your mind when the time comes," he said."Anyway, Persis, you say we'll all come, and then, if Penelope don't want to go, you can excuse her after we get there.
That's the best way."
None of them, apparently, saw any reason why the affair should not be left in this way, or had a sense of the awful and binding nature of a dinner engagement.
If she believed that Penelope would not finally change her mind and go, no doubt Mrs.Lapham thought that Mrs.Corey would easily excuse her absence.She did not find it so ****** a matter to accept the invitation.
Mrs.Corey had said "Dear Mrs.Lapham," but Mrs.Lapham had her doubts whether it would not be a servile imitation to say "Dear Mrs.Corey" in return; and she was tormented as to the proper phrasing throughout and the precise temperature which she should impart to her politeness.
She wrote an unpractised, uncharacteristic round hand, the same in which she used to set the children's copies at school, and she subscribed herself, after some hesitation between her husband's given name and her own, "Yours truly, Mrs.S.Lapham."Penelope had gone to her room, without waiting to be asked to advise or criticise; but Irene had decided upon the paper, and on the whole, Mrs.Lapham's note made a very decent appearance on the page.
"When the furnace-man came, the Colonel sent him out to post it in the box at the corner of the square.
He had determined not to say anything more about the matter before the girls, not choosing to let them see that he was elated; he tried to give the effect of its being an everyday sort of thing, abruptly closing the discussion with his order to Mrs.Lapham to accept;but he had remained swelling behind his newspaper during her prolonged struggle with her note, and he could no longer hide his elation when Irene followed her sister upstairs.
"Well, Pers," he demanded, "what do you say now?"Mrs.Lapham had been sobered into something of her former misgiving by her difficulties with her note.
"Well, I don't know what TO say.I declare, I'm all mixed up about it, and I don't know as we've begun as we can carry out in promising to go.I presume," she sighed, "that we can all send some excuse at the last moment, if we don't want to go.""I guess we can carry out, and I guess we shan't want to send any excuse," bragged the Colonel."If we're ever going to be anybody at all, we've got to go and see how it's done.I presume we've got to give some sort of party when we get into the new house, and this gives the chance to ask 'em back again.You can't complain now but what they've made the advances, Persis?""No," said Mrs.Lapham lifelessly; "I wonder why they wanted to do it.Oh, I suppose it's all right," she added in deprecation of the anger with her humility which she saw rising in her husband's face; "but if it's all going to be as much trouble as that letter, I'd rather be whipped.
I don't know what I'm going to wear; or the girls either.
I do wonder--I've heard that people go to dinner in low-necks.Do you suppose it's the custom?""How should I know?" demanded the Colonel."I guess you've got clothes enough.Any rate, you needn't fret about it.
You just go round to White's or Jordan & Marsh's, and ask for a dinner dress.I guess that'll settle it;they'll know.Get some of them imported dresses.I see 'em in the window every time I pass; lots of 'em""Oh, it ain't the dress!" said Mrs.Lapham."I don't suppose but what we could get along with that; and I want to do the best we can for the children; but I don't know what we're going to talk about to those people when we get there.We haven't got anything in common with them.
