ed the day after her arrival, and Mrs.
Lapham being still unwell, Penelope received them alone.

The girl had instinctively judged best that they should know the worst
at once, and she let them have the full brunt of the drawing-room,
while she was screwing her courage up to come down and see them. She
was afterwards--months afterwards--able to report to Corey that when
she entered the room his father was sitting with his hat on his knees,
a little tilted away from the Emancipation group, as if he expected the
Lincoln to hit him, with that lifted hand of benediction; and that Mrs.
Corey looked as if she were not sure but the Eagle pecked. But for the
time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as might be by the
complications of her position, and received her visitors with a piteous
distraction which could not fail of touching Bromfield Corey's
Italianised sympatheticism. He was very polite and tender with her at
first, and ended by making a joke with her, to which Penelope
responded, in her sort. He said he hoped they parted friends, if not
quite acquaintances; and she said she hoped they would be able to
recognise each other if they ever met again.

"That is what I meant by her pertness," said Mrs Corey, when they were
driving away.

"Was it very pert?" he queried. "The child had to answer something."

"I would much rather she had answered nothing, under the
circumstances," said Mrs. Corey. "However!" she added hopelessly.
"Oh, she's a merry little grig, you can see that, and there's no harm
in her. I can understand a little why a formal fellow like Tom should
be taken with her. She hasn't the least reverence, I suppose, and
joked with the young man from the beginning. You must remember, Anna,
that there was a time when you liked my joking."

"It was a very different thing!"

"But that drawing-room," pursued Corey; "really, I don't see how Tom
stands that. Anna, a terrible thought occurs to me! Fancy Tom being
married in front of that group, with a floral horse-shoe in tuberoses
coming down on either side of it!"

"Bromfield!" cried his wife, "you are unmerciful."

"No, no, my dear," he argued; "merely imaginative. And I can even
imagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, at
times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm
convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn't
quite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, my dear."

"Your fath