"Mother, we must have some of those silk blankets. They're so comfy to lie on."
"You never see anything except when you want to," complained Mrs. Harrigan.
"It saves a deal of trouble. I don't want to go to the colonel's this afternoon. He always has some frump to pour tea and ask fool questions."
"The frump, as you call her, is usually a countess or a duchess," with asperity.
"Fiddlesticks! Nobility makes a specialty of frumps; it is one of the species of the caste. That's why I shall never marry a title. I wish neither to visit nor to entertain frumps. Frump,--the word calls up the exact picture; frump and fatuity. Oh, I'll go, but I'd rather stay on my balcony and read a good book."
"My dear," patiently, "the colonel is one of the social laws on Como. His sister is the wife of an earl. You must not offend him. His Sundays are the most exclusive on the lake."
"The word exclusive should be properly applied to those in jail. The social ladder, the social ladder! Don't you know, mother mine, that every rung is sawn by envy and greed, and that those who climb highest fall farthest?"
"The padre could give lessons in kindness and shrewdness to any other man I know. If he hadn't chosen the gown he would have been a poet. I love the padre, with his snow-white hair and his withered leathery face. He was with the old king all through the freeing of Italy."
"And had a fine time explaining to the Vatican," sniffed the mother.
"That I have wished the Calabrian's voice would fail her some night in _Carmen_; that I am wearing shoes a size too small for me; that I should like to be rich without labor; that I am sometimes ashamed of my calling; that I should have liked to see father win a prizefight; oh, and a thousand other horrid, hateful things."
"I wish to gracious that you would fall violently in love."
"Spiteful! There are those lovely lace collars; come on."
"You are hopeless," was the mother's conviction.
"Some day," said Celeste, who was a privileged person in the Harrigan family, "some day I am going to teach you two how to play at foils. It would be splendid. And then you could always settle your differences with bouts."
"Better than that," retorted Nora. "I'll ask father to lend us his old set of gloves. He carries them around as if they were a fetish. I believe they're in the bottom of one of my steamer trunks."