in a lower
voice still, repeated the solemn words, "My beloved husband is no more."

I winked hard at Mr. Candy across the table. Miss Rachel touched his
arm. My lady looked unutterable things at him. Quite useless! On he
went, with a cordiality that there was no stopping anyhow. "I shall be
delighted," says he, "to send the Professor my card, if you will oblige
me by mentioning his present address."

"His present address, sir, is THE GRAVE," says Mrs. Threadgall, suddenly
losing her temper, and speaking with an emphasis and fury that made the
glasses ring again. "The Professor has been dead these ten years."

"Oh, good heavens!" says Mr. Candy. Excepting the Bouncers, who burst
out laughing, such a blank now fell on the company, that they might all
have been going the way of the Professor, and hailing as he did from the
direction of the grave.

So much for Mr. Candy. The rest of them were nearly as provoking in
their different ways as the doctor himself. When they ought to have
spoken, they didn't speak; or when they did speak they were perpetually
at cross purposes. Mr. Godfrey, though so eloquent in public, declined
to exert himself in private. Whether he was sulky, or whether he was
bashful, after his discomfiture in the rose-garden, I can't say. He kept
all his talk for the private ear of the lady (a member of our
family) who sat next to him. She was one of his committee-women--a
spiritually-minded person, with a fine show of collar-bone and a pretty
taste in champagne; liked it dry, you understand, and plenty of it.
Being close behind these two at the sideboard, I can testify, from what
I heard pass between them, that the company lost a good deal of very
improving conversation, which I caught up while drawing the corks, and
carving the mutton, and so forth. What they said about their Charities I
didn't hear. When I had time to listen to them, they had got a long way
beyond their women to be confined, and their women to be rescued, and
were disputing on serious subjects. Religion (I understand Mr. Godfrey
to say, between the corks and the carving) meant love. And love meant
religion. And earth was heaven a little the worse for wear. And
heaven was earth, done up again to look like new. Earth had some very
objectionable people in it; but, to make amends for that, all the
women in heaven would be members of a prodigious committee that never
quarrelled, with all the men in attendance on them as ministering
angels