o was? "Not blood." What a way to talk. Why, a
husband was the first of all relations. How well she remembered
Ruskin--no, it was not Ruskin, it was the Bible that said a man should
leave his father and mother and cleave only to his wife; showing that
she became by marriage an even more than blood relation. And if the
husband's father and mother were to be nothing to him compared to his
wife, how much less than nothing ought the wife's father and mother be
to her compared to her husband. She herself had been unable to leave
her father and mother in order to cleave to Mr. Fisher because they
were no longer, when she married, alive, but she certainly would have
left them if they had been there to leave. Not blood, indeed. Silly
talk.

The dinner was very good. Succulence succeeded succulence.
Costanza had determined to do as she chose in the matter of cream and
eggs the first week, and see what happened at the end of it when the
bills had to be paid. Her experience of the English was that they were
quiet about bills. They were shy of words. They believed readily.
Besides, who was the mistress here? In the absence of a definite one,
it occurred to Costanza that she might as well be the mistress herself.
So she did as she chose about the dinner, and it was very good.

The four, however, were so much preoccupied by their own
conversation that they ate it without noticing how good it was. Even
Mrs. Fisher, she who in such matters was manly, did not notice. The
entire excellent cooking was to her as though it were not; which shows
how much she must have been stirred.

She was stirred. It was that Mrs. Wilkins. She was enough to
stir anybody. And she was undoubtedly encouraged by Lady Caroline,
who, in her turn, was no doubt influenced by the Chianti.

Mrs. Fisher was very glad there were no men present, for they
certainly would have been foolish about Lady Caroline. She was
precisely the sort of young woman to unbalance them; especially, Mrs.
Fisher recognized, at that moment. Perhaps it was the Chianti
momentarily intensifying her personality, but she was undeniably most
attractive; and there were few things Mrs. Fisher disliked more than
having to look on while sensible, intelligent men, who the moment
before were talking seriously and interestingly about real matters,
became merely foolish and simpering--she had seen them actually
simpering--just because in walked a bit of bird-brained beauty. Even