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 smocked it! And it was lukewarm. But the rich little cakes were delicious, and Carrie's being more nervous than herself was comforting. She was happy and excited as Joe hooked her into her best dress of orange-pink corded silk. Her hair shone like a horse-chestnut, catching the light where it turned in a French twist or sprang over her forehead in a small curve of bang; her cheeks glowed from a surreptitious scrubbing with a bath towel while Joe was grandly crackling into his shirt in his dressing room. But when Harcourt beat a crescendo diminuendo on the gong that hung in the hall between two life-sized Siamese warriors, she was in a panic again.

Very different now in the drawing-room, with the gold-brocade curtains drawn, and custard-yellow flowers brought in from the conservatory and put about on the small gilt tables. In the fireplace the voices of the fire spoke together—one like silk fluttering in the wind, one like rain pattering on dead leaves. Aunt Sarah sat in a straight chair before it, in black lace and watered silk, and on the back of the chair a parrot, with feathers the color of grass-green banana leaves and eyes surrounded by wrinkled white kid, danced from side to side, pausing now and then to make a sound like a popping cork or to scream, "Carrie!"

"Well, Joseph. Well, Kate. Don't kiss me; Benjie would bite you. Don't step on Mopsa, Kate; she's the color of the rug."

"Ca-a-a-ree! Oh dear! Ca-a-a-ree!"