“I’ve been intending to call sooner, Miss Hawkins,” said the Hon. Mrs. Oreille, “but the weather’s been so horrid.  How do you like Washington?”

Laura liked it very well indeed.

Mrs. Gashly—­“Is it your first visit?”

Yea, it was her first.

All—­“Indeed?”

Mrs. Oreille—­“I’m afraid you’ll despise the weather, Miss Hawkins.  It’s perfectly awful.  It always is.  I tell Mr. Oreille I can’t and I won’t put up with any such a climate.  If we were obliged to do it, I wouldn’t mind it; but we are not obliged to, and so I don’t see the use of it.  Sometimes its real pitiful the way the childern pine for Parry —­don’t look so sad, Bridget, ’ma chere’—­poor child, she can’t hear Parry mentioned without getting the blues.”

Mrs. Gashly—­“Well I should think so, Mrs. Oreille.  A body lives in Paris, but a body, only stays here.  I dote on Paris; I’d druther scrimp along on ten thousand dollars a year there, than suffer and worry here on a real decent income.”

Miss Gashly—­“Well then, I wish you’d take us back, mother; I’m sure I hate this stoopid country enough, even if it is our dear native land.”

Miss Emmeline Gashly—­“What and leave poor Johnny Peterson behind?” [An airy genial laugh applauded this sally].

Miss Gashly—­“Sister, I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself!”

Miss Emmeline—­“Oh, you needn’t ruffle your feathers so:  I was only joking.  He don’t mean anything by coming to, the house every evening —­only comes to see mother.  Of course that’s all!” [General laughter].

Miss G. prettily confused—­“Emmeline, how can you!”

Mrs. G.—­“Let your sister alone, Emmeline.  I never saw such a tease!”

Mrs. Oreille—­“What lovely corals you have, Miss Hawkins!  Just look at them, Bridget, dear.  I’ve a great passion for corals—­it’s a pity they’re getting a little common.  I have some elegant ones—­not as elegant as yours, though—­but of course I don’t wear them now.”

Laura—­“I suppose they are rather common, but still I have a great affection for these, because they were given to me by a dear old friend of our family named Murphy.  He was a very charming man, but very eccentric.  We always supposed he was an Irishman, but after be got rich he went abroad for a year or two, and when he came back you would have been amused to see how interested he was in a potato.  He asked what it was!  Now you know that when Providence shapes a mouth especially for the accommodation of a potato you can detect that fact at a glance when that mouth is in repose—­foreign travel can never remove that sign.  But he was a very delightful gentleman, and his little foible did not hurt him at all.  We all have our shams—­I suppose there is a sham somewhere about every individual, if we could manage to ferret it out.  I would so like to go to France.  I suppose our society here compares very favorably with French society does it not, Mrs. Oreille?”