hat she could add
with sincere apology: "I'm sorry I vexed you, and I won't do it
again."

IV

The next day was Sunday; Peter Bream took it for some Sunday, and came
to the tea on Mrs. Forsyth's generalized invitation. She pulled her
mouth down and her eyebrows up when his card was brought in, but as
he followed hard she made a lightning change to a smile and gave him a
hand of cordial welcome. Charlotte had no choice but to welcome him,
too, and so the matter was simple for her. She was pouring, as usual,
for her mother, who liked to eliminate herself from set duties and
walk round among the actual portraits in fact and in frame and talk
about them to the potential portraits. Peter, qualified by long
sojourn in England, at once pressed himself into the service of
handing about the curate's assistant; Mrs. Forsyth electrically
explained that it was one of the first brought to New York, and that
she had got it at the Stores in London fifteen years before, and it
had often been in the old ancestral room, and was there on top of the
trunks that first day. She did not recur to the famous instance of
Charlotte's infant indecision, and Peter was safe from a snub when he
sat down by the girl's side and began to make her laugh. At the end,
when her mother asked Charlotte what they had been laughing about, she
could not tell; she said she did not know they were laughing.

The next morning Mrs. Forsyth was paying for her Sunday tea with a
Monday headache, and more things must be got out for the country.
Charlotte had again no choice but to go alone to the storage, and yet
again no choice but to be pleasant to Peter when she found him next
door listing the contents of his mother's trunks and tagging them as
before. He dropped his work and wanted to help her. Suddenly they
seemed strangely well acquainted, and he pretended to be asked which
pieces she should put aside as goods selected, and chose them for her.
She hinted that he was shirking his own work; he said it was an
all-summer's job, but he knew her mother was in a hurry. He found the
little old trunk of her playthings, and got it down and opened it and
took out some toys as goods selected. She made him put them back, but
first he catalogued everything in it and synopsized the list on a tag
and tagged the trunk. He begged for a broken doll which he had not
listed, and Charlotte had so much of her original childish difficulty
in parting