Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/208

 ning along the soot at the back of the chimney—"folks going to meeting," she had been taught to call them. Somehow the suggestion of a string of people all bound for the same place made her feel cross.

"Everybody's always doing just the same thing as everybody else. It is so tiresome! If nobody else had ever got married, Fred would never have thought of anything so foolish"; and then she laughed at her own childishness. She would have liked to cry just as well as to laugh, but she usually drew the line at tears.

It must have been about nine o'clock when there was a sharp ring at the door-bell. Mary shuddered. Was it some midnight marauder? Alas! her forebodings were worse than that. Thieves and murderers she might perhaps know how to deal with, but there was an enemy more to be dreaded than they. The bell rang a second time, reverberating loudly through the empty house, before she answered it. Her worst fears were realized.

"Why, Fred, is that you?" she said, holding the door half open in a gingerly manner. "Did mother want anything?"

"No. It's I that want something. Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Oh, yes! Come in. I was so surprised! How could you leave your party?"

"That was easy enough. I just walked out of the room. How pleasant it looks here! This is the hall you dislike so much. Pity you should!