Mrs. Roberts.  Well, I don’t know.  I suppose I’ve been worked up a little about meeting Willis, and wondering how he’ll look, and all.  We can’t know each other, of course.  It doesn’t stand to reason that if he’s been out there for twelve years, ever since I was a child, though we’ve corresponded regularly—­at least I have—­that he could recognize me; not at the first glance, you know.  He’ll have a full beard; and then I’ve got married, and here’s the baby.  Oh, no! he’ll never guess who it is in the world.  Photographs really amount to nothing in such a case.  I wish we were at home, and it was all over.  I wish he had written some particulars, instead of telegraphing from Ogden, “Be with you on the 7 A.M., Wednesday.”

Aunt Mary.  Californians always telegraph, my dear; they never think of writing.  It isn’t expensive enough, and it doesn’t make your blood run cold enough to get a letter, and so they send you one of those miserable yellow despatches whenever they can—­those printed in a long string, if possible, so that you’ll be sure to die before you get to the end of it.  I suppose your brother has fallen into all those ways, and says “reckon” and “ornary” and “which the same,” just like one of Mr. Bret Harte’s characters.

Mrs. Roberts.  But it isn’t exactly our not knowing each other, aunty, that’s worrying me; that’s something that could be got over in time.  What is simply driving me distracted is Willis and Edward meeting there when I’m away from home.  Oh, how could I be away! and why couldn’t Willis have given us fair warning?  I would have hurried from the ends of the earth to meet him.  I don’t believe poor Edward ever saw a Californian; and he’s so quiet and preoccupied, I’m sure he’d never get on with Willis.  And if Willis is the least loud, he wouldn’t like Edward.  Not that I suppose he is loud; but I don’t believe he knows anything about literary men.  But you can see, aunty, can’t you, how very anxious I must be?  Don’t you see that I ought to have been there when Willis and Edward met, so as to—­to—­well, to break them to each other, don’t you know?

AUNT MARY.  Oh, you needn’t be troubled about that, Agnes.  I dare say they’ve got on perfectly well together.  Very likely they’re sitting down to the unwholesomest hot supper this instant that the ingenuity of man could invent.

MRS. ROBERTS.  Oh, do you think they are, aunty?  Oh, if I could only believe they were sitting down to a hot supper together now, I should be so happy!  They’d be sure to get on if they were.  There’s nothing like eating to make men friendly with each other.  Don’t you know, at receptions, how they never have anything to say to each other till the escalloped oysters and the chicken salad appear; and then how sweet they are as soon as they’ve helped the ladies to ice?  Oh, thank you, thank you,