rticles of capitulation thus agreed upon enabled Mr. Rutherford to
meet Mr. and Mrs. Honey with that calm, clear conscience which finds its
strength in the certainty of the impossibility of detection. He greeted
them with the unruffled mien and courteous ease of the polished
gentleman--a manner that fairly overwhelmed the ex-man-servant, and made
him feel that to possess it he would willingly have bartered his remote
future to the arch-fiend. None but Honey himself knew how unhappy he was
made by his dress-suit, which seemed to persistently inspire him with
the idea that he was still a waiter; or how wretched he was in the
constant fear that he would be betrayed by that inspiration into the
doing of something for which Mrs. Honey would pounce upon him. In vain
he had implored his inexorable partner to be allowed to stay at home,
impressing those considerations upon her with all the eloquence of which
he was possessed; and indeed she saw for herself that he could not
refrain, when he wore his dress-coat, from laying his handkerchief over
his left arm like a waiter's napkin. Mrs. Honey replied, however, that
he _must_ meet people on a footing of equality or he would never learn
how to conduct himself properly in society; an argument which finally
induced him to accompany her, shamefacedly.

Only the persons already mentioned in this narration sat down that
afternoon to what was destined to be a fateful Christmas Eve dinner.
Smiling faces masked anxious hearts, all round the board. The Wildfens
had had a more than usually spirited battle of words just before coming
down from their room. Mr. Honey endured the misery of constant effort
for the maintenance of a correct deportment, to insure which his wife
seemed to fix her gray eyes steadily upon him with a stony glare, while
she held an iron-shod heel ever ready to crunch his corns as a silent
monition. Edna was still afraid that her husband had not really forgiven
her in his heart; and Rutherford's mind was far from easy. Plowden felt
that he might just as well be a murderer as a mere bigamist, so
conscience-stricken and care-ridden was he. Miss Fithian, osseous, grim,
and scowling, looked like "the skeleton at the feast," and felt like
"the dread Avenger." The only undisturbed soul present was that of
pretty, gentle Mrs. Plowden.

Walnuts and wine were reached at last. Then Mrs. Wildfen remembered how
fond Mrs. Honey used to be of making speeches, wherever she might air
h