Then the waiter laid another plate for Mitch.e.l.l, and brought oyster c.o.c.ktails for everyone. Aunt Mary eyed hers with early curiosity and later suspicion; and she smelled of it very carefully.

"I don't believe they're good oysters," she said.

"Yes, they are," cried Mitch.e.l.l rea.s.suringly. His voice, when he turned it upon her, was pitched like a clarionet. The blind would surely have seen as well as the deaf have heard had there been any candidates for miracles in his immediate vicinity. "They're first-cla.s.s," he added, "you just go at them and see."

The rea.s.sured took another whiff.

"You can have mine," she said directly afterwards; and there was an air of decision about her speech which brooked no opposition. Yet Mitch.e.l.l persisted.

"Oh, no," he yelled; "you must learn how. Just throw your head back and take 'em quick-after the fashion that they eat raw eggs, don't you know?"

"But she can't," said Clover. "There's too much, particularly as she isn't used to them. I'll tell you, Miss Watkins," he cried, hoisting his own voice to the masthead, "you eat the oysters, and leave the c.o.c.ktail.

That's the way to get gradually trained into the wheel."

Aunt Mary thought some of obeying; she fished out one oyster, wiped it carefully with a bit of bread, regarded it with more than dubious countenance, and then suddenly decided not to.

"I'd rather be at home when I try experiments," she said, decidedly; and the waiter carried off her c.o.c.ktail and gave her food that was good beyond question thereafter.

The dinner went with zest. It was an enlivening party that consumed it, and what they consumed with it enlivened them still more. The gentlemen soon reached the point where they could laugh over jokes they could not understand, and the one lady member became equally merry over wit that she did not hear. She forgot for the nonce that there were any phases of life in which she was not a believer, and whether this was owing to the surrounding gayety or to the champagne which they persuaded her to taste it is not my province to explain.

"Now we must lay our lines for events to come," Jack said, when they advanced upon the dessert and prepared to occupy an extensive territory of ices, fruit, and jellied something or other. "It would be a sin for Aunt Mary to leave this famous battlefield without a few honorable scars! We must take her out in a bubble for one thing and-"

"In mine!" cried Clover. "To-morrow! Why can't she?-I held up my hand first?"

"All right," said Jack; "to-morrow she's your's. At four o'clock."

"She must have goggles," cried Mitch.e.l.l. "She must have goggles and be all fixed up, and when you have got her the goggles and she has been all fixed up, I ask, as a last boon, that I may go along, just so as to see everyone who sees her."

"We'll all go," Clover explained. "I'll 'chuff' her myself and then there'll be room for everyone."

"To the auto and to to-morrow!" cried Burnett, hastily pouring out a fresh toast, which even Aunt Mary applauded, not at all knowing what she was applauding.

"And now for the next day," said Jack. "I think I'll give her a box-party.

Don't you want to go to the theater in a box, Aunt Mary?"

"Go where in a box?" said Aunt Mary, starting a little. "I didn't quite catch that."

"To the theater," Jack yelled.

"To the theater," repeated his aunt a trifle blankly, "I-"

"And the next day," said Mitch.e.l.l suddenly (he had been reflecting maturely), "I'll take you all up the sound in my yacht."

"Oh, hurrah," cried Burnett, "that'll be bully! And the day after I'll give her a picnic."

"Time of your life, Aunt Mary," Jack shrieked in her ear-trumpet; "time of your life!"

"Dear me!" said Aunt Mary, "I don't just-"

"Aunt Mary! gla.s.ses down!" cried Clover; "may she live forever and forever."

"To Aunt Mary, gla.s.ses up," said Mitch.e.l.l. "Gla.s.ses up come before gla.s.ses down always. It's one of the laws of Nature-human nature-also of good nature. Here's to Aunt Mary, and if she isn't the Aunt Mary of all of us here's a hoping she may get there some day; I don't just see how, but I ask the indulgence of those present on the plea that I have indulged quite a little myself to-night. Honi soit qui mal y pense; ora pro n.o.bis, Erin-go-Bragh. Present company being present, and impossible to except on that account, we will omit the three cheers and choke down the tiger."

They all drank, and the dinner having by this time dwindled down to coffee grounds and cheese crumbs a vote was taken as to where they should go next.

Aunt Mary suggested home, but she was over-ruled, and they all went elsewhere. She never could recollect where she went or what she saw; but, as everyone else has been and seen over and over again, I won't fuss with detailing it.

The visitor from the country reached home in a carriage in the small hours in the morning, and Janice received her, looking somewhat nervous.

"This is pretty late," she ventured to remind the bearers; but as they didn't seem to think so, and she was a maiden, wise beyond her years, she spoke no further word, but went to work and undressed the aged reveller, got her comfortably established in bed, and then left her to get a good sleep, an occupation which occupied the weary one fully until two that afternoon.

When she did at last open her eyes it was several minutes before she knew where she was. Her brain seemed dazed, her intellect more than clouded. It is a state of mind to which those who habitually go about in hansoms at the hour of dawn are well accustomed, but to Aunt Mary it was painfully new. She struggled to remember, and felt helplessly inadequate to the task. Janice finally came in with a gla.s.s of something that foamed and fizzed, and the victim of late hours drank that and came to her senses again. Then she recollected.

"My! but I had a good time last night!" she said, putting her hand to her head. "What time is it now, anyhow?"

"Breakfast time," cried the handmaiden. "You'll have just long enough to eat and dress leisurely before you go out."

"Oh!" said Aunt Mary blankly; "where 'm I goin'? Do you know?"

"Mr. Denham told me that you had promised to attend an automobile party at four."

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Mary hastily. "I guess I remember. I guess I do. I saw Jack wanted to go, so I said I'd go, too. I'm a great believer in lettin' the young enjoy themselves."

She looked sharply at Janice as she spoke, but Janice was serene.

"I didn't come to town to do anything but make Jack happy," continued Aunt Mary, "and I see that he won't take any fresh air without I go along-so I shall go too while I'm here. Mostly. As a general thing."

"Mr. Mitch.e.l.l called and left these flowers with his card," Janice said, opening a huge box of roses; "and a man brought a package. Shall I open it?"

Aunt Mary's wrinkles fairly radiated.

"Well, did I ever!" she exclaimed. "Yes; open it."

Janice proceeded to obey, and the package was found to contain an automobile wrap, a pair of goggles and a note from Clover.

"My gracious me!" cried Aunt Mary.

"Mr. Denham sent the violets," Janice said, pointing to a great bowl of lilac and white blossoms.

Just then the doorbell rang, and it was a ten-pound box of candy from Burnett.

Aunt Mary collapsed among her pillows.

"I _never_ did!" she murmured feebly, and then she suddenly exclaimed: "An' to think of me livin' up there all my life with plenty of money-" she stopped short. I tell you when you come to New York on a mission and stay for the Baccha.n.a.lia it is hard to hold consistently to either standard.

But Janice had gone for her lady's breakfast, and after the lady had eaten it and had herself dressed for the day's joys, Jack knocked at the door.

"Well, Aunt Mary," he roared, when he was let in, "if you don't look fine!