when she wasn't so
sleepy. Americanization work in Whitmanville. That seemed to offer rich
possibilities. There must be room for endless Uplift in Whitmanville.
And what could be richer than Uplift? She would start a school, she
thought, as she turned off the light and climbed into her four-poster.
She would teach the women how to take care of their babies and the men
how to take care of their women. But it must all be done tactfully. She
must be eternally vigilant upon that score. Yet not so tactful as to
become less rich. Nor yet so rich as to become less tactful.... Tact and
riches--riches and tacks--tracts--striches--....

V

The night following Nancy's return was the night of the Norris party,
the party which is to Woodbridge what the Mardi Gras is to New Orleans,
the Carnival to Rome, and what the Feast of the Ygquato Bloom was to the
ancient Aztecs. It is always held on the twenty-first of March, Sunday
of course excepted, and it is known as the Vernal. Not to be seen at it
is too bad. Not to be invited--unlike the lupercals before mentioned it
requires invitations--is a blight mercifully spared all but the most
painfully outre. Of these the Coogans, who live in Center and whose
connubial infelicities are proverbial, are an example. Tradespeople
frequently bear witness to the marks of a man's fingers on Mrs. Coogan's
fair--and by no means insignificant--arm, and it is common property that
she drinks paregoric. It is quite clear, of course, that such people can
not expect to be invited.

The Vernal has always been "different." In the old days Mrs. Norris set
her face against dancing, not upon any moral grounds, certainly, but
because of its alleged dullness. Why couldn't people enjoy one another
without flying into a perspiration? she asked; but, unfortunately for
her plans for the establishment of an animated conversazione, the
substitutes she had advocated were felt to be even duller. So, one by
one, all her nice games were abandoned and only the charade is left.
This however has gained in popularity, if anything, and certainly it has
gained paraphernalia. Mrs. Norris's costume box has overflowed into a
trunk, and from the trunk has spread into a closet, and the closet is
now nearly filled. From this treasure the two captains select their
colleagues' wardrobes, a duty discharged in advance of the performance
by way of ensuring enough professionalism to prevent the party's
collapsing at the start. In