“Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible!  The ocean in a tea-cup?  Let me see,—­you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn’t you?  Well, she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells.  It was odd to miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once.  Mrs. Laudersdale was ill; I don’t know exactly what the trouble was.  You know she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer; and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the doctors foreboded insanity.  She expressed great disinclination to follow their advice, and her husband finally banished them all.  It was a great care to him; he altered much.  McLean surmised that she didn’t like to see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her sight during the greater part of the winter.  I don’t know whether she became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, or what happened.  But one cold March evening he set out for his home, dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and impenetrable.  At least,” continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, “I have manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has now and then reported from his conversation.  I dare say there isn’t a bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn’t a man to publish his affairs; but I believe it.  One thing is certain:  Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it ever since.”

“Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?”

“No.  But he will come with their daughter shortly.”

“And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?”

“Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do.  Mrs. Purcell gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for spectator.  Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them.  Mrs. McLean gossips and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order.”

“Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?”

“This is pretty well!  Hush!  Who is that?”