University of Virginia Library

3. PART III.
WILL MRS. INGULPHUS CALL?

By the French clock, it was getting towards half-past four in
the drawing-room. At five minutes to four, Mrs. Leathers had
ordered Fuzzard to oil the joint of the door-bell, for it was inconceivable
that nobody should have come, and perhaps the bell
wouldn't ring. Ladies in good society would give up an acquaintance
rather than split their gloves open with straining at a tight
bell-handle—so Mr. Cyphers seriously assured her.

The afternoon wore on, and still no sign of a visitor. Of her
unfashionable acquaintances she was sure not to see one, for, on
them, Mrs. Leathers had left “At Homes” for Saturday, to preserve
an uncontaminated “Friday” for the list made out by Mr.
Cyphers.

Mrs. Leathers walked the room nervously, and, at every turn,
looked through the lace curtain of her front window.

“I'll move from this house,” said the unhappy woman, twisting
her handkerchief around her elbow and thumb, “for there are
those Sneden girls opposite, with their bonnets on, peeping
through the blinds, and, if nobody comes, they'll stay away themselves
and tell everybody else. Mr. Cyphers! if some carriage
don't stop at the door before dark, I shall die! How came you

to put those nasty Snedens on the list, Mr. Cyphers? To leave
a card and not have it returned, is so mortifying!”

“Nasty Snedens, as you say,” echoed Cyphers, “but it's no
use to despise people till you have something to refuse. Wait
till they want to come to a party because Mrs. Ingulphus is
coming!”

“Why, do the Snedens know Mrs. Ingulphus?” inquired Mrs.
Leathers, half incredulously.

“Know her?—she couldn't live without them!” and glad of
anything to take off the attention of his friend from her disappointment,
and enliven the dullness of that very long morning,
Cyphers proceeded to define the Snedens.

“They are of a class of families,” he continued, “common to
every well-regulated society,—all girls and all regular failures—
a sort of collapsed-looking troop of young ladies, plain and good
for nothing, but dying to be fashionable. Every stylish person
at the head of a set has one such family in her train.”

“But what on earth can the Snedens do for Mrs. Ingulphus?”
inquired Mrs. Leathers rather listlessly.

“Why, they pick up her scandal, do her cheap shopping, circulate
what she wants known, put down reports about her, collect
compliments, entertain bores, praise her friends and ridicule her
rivals—dirty work you may say, but has to be done! No `position'
without it—I assure you I have come to that conclusion. In
natural history there is a corresponding class—jackals. As
clever what-d'ye-call-him says, a leader of fashion without a
family of girls of disappointed prospects, is like a lion starving to
death for want of jackals.”

“Twenty minutes to five!” digressed Mrs. Leathers; “I wonder
if Mrs. Ingulphus is sick! Oh, Mr. Cyphers!” she continued,

in a tone of as much anguish as she could possibly feel,
“can't you go round and implore her—beg her—anything to
make her come—only this once! You told me you knew her so
well, and she was certain to be here!”

Cyphers, in fact, had about given up Mrs. Leathers's “Friday
morning” as a failure; but he went on consoling. The light
perceptibly lessened in the room. It was evident that the evening,
without any regard to Mrs. Leathers's feelings, was about to
close over the visiting hour. Meantime, however, a scene had
been going on in the basement, which eventually had an important
influence on Mrs. Leathers's “Friday mornings,” and of
which we must, therefore, give the reader a glimpse, though, (our
story is getting so long,) we must confine ourselves to its closing
tableau.