"Oh, not as pretty as yours!
"Nonsense! The ones on the dining-room table are simply perfect. I do think it's sweet of you to do this for Evelyn. She would have come over to help, but Hartley Harrison came to take her to look at another house."
"I should think it would be quite a relief to you when they found one."
"It will be, Charlotte! Of course it'll pretty nearly break my heart to have Joe go. . . . This bottom's wet; I don't want to put it on the mahogany. Have you a cloth? . . . But he might as well not be home now as far as I see anything of him. Evelyn simply absorbs him. You know I simply couldn't try to get him to pay attention to me, and she does, so naturally— Ouch! Those thorns are sharp! But I don't know what it's going to be like when she's keeping house, Charlotte, I certainly don't. I mean, if you could see the way their room looks—powder over everything, and her clothes anywhere, on the chairs, on the floor, any old way, and the door wide open so anyone can see. . . . Don't you think this is prettier without any asparagus? I do. . . . Still, it'll give her something to do. She seems just about bored to death all the time Joe's away, though goodness knows everyone's being as cordial as anything. I must say she hasn't been feeling very well."
"Do you think maybe?"
"March, April, May—I don't know. Well, if you're
