Miss Birdseye was incapable of resentment; she had invited
forty people to hear Mrs. Farrinder speak, and now Mrs. Farrinder
wouldn't speak. But she had such a beautiful reason for it! There was
something martial and heroic in her pretext, and, besides, it was so
characteristic, so free, that Miss Birdseye was quite consoled, and
wandered away, looking at her other guests vaguely, as if she didn't
know them from each other, while she mentioned to them, at a venture,
the excuse for their disappointment, confident, evidently, that they
would agree with her it was very fine. "But we can't pretend to be on
the other side, just to start her up, can we?" she asked of Mr. Tarrant,
who sat there beside his wife with a rather conscious but by no means
complacent air of isolation from the rest of the company.
"Well, I don't know--I guess we are all solid here," this gentleman
replied, looking round him with a slow, deliberate smile, which made his
mouth enormous, developed two wrinkles, as long as the wings of a bat,
on either side of it, and showed a set of big, even, carnivorous teeth.
"Selah," said his wife, laying her hand on the sleeve of his waterproof,
"I wonder whether Miss Birdseye would be interested to hear Verena.
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