“I had begun to wonder, Mr. Maltboy,” said Miss Whedell, “what makes our friends so backward to-day.  I do declare, we have not had a caller for more than—­how long is it, Gusty, since Colonel Bigford dropped in?”

Maltboy thought her voice had a sweet, metallic ring.

“About half an hour,” replied Mrs. Frump, after a brief mental calculation.

“Why, Gusty!” exclaimed Miss Whedell; “how can you sit there and tell such stories?  You know it is not five minutes.”

“Just as you please, dear,” said Mrs. Frump, leaving on the minds of her hearers the impression that her estimate was the correct one.

“I never saw anything so slow,” pursued Miss Whedell.  “Would you believe it, Mr. Maltboy—­here are two hours gone, and we have not had more than—­how many callers have we had, Gusty?  You keep account of them.”

Mrs. Frump drew out a little memorandum book from one of her pockets, and consulted.  “Exactly eleven, Clemmy,” said she.

“Gusty Frump,” returned Miss Whedell, with some warmth, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself!  We have had fifty callers, to my certain knowledge.”

“I presume you are right,” said Mrs. Frump, with a smile that irradiated the whole of her fat face, and again imparted the idea that Miss Whedell was wrong.

“For one,” said Matthew Maltboy, improving the opportunity to put in a word, “I should not be surprised to learn that you had a hundred.”

Miss Whedell appreciated the delicate compliment, and beamed fascination upon him.

“It has been a horrid, dreary winter, has it not, Mr. Maltboy?” said she, in a tone that invited sympathy and confidence.

Mr. Maltboy, supposing that she alluded to the prevalent snow and ice of the season, said that it certainly had.

“No balls, no opera—­or none to speak of—­no parties, no anything.  You will hardly believe it, Mr. Maltboy, but I declare I haven’t been to twenty parties this winter—­have I, Gusty?”

“To only two that I know of,” responded Mrs. Frump, in a winning voice.

“You provoking creature,” said Miss Whedell, “to talk so, when you know that I have been to at least eighteen parties!” Miss Whedell scowled charmingly as she spoke, and then added, with a pleasant smile, for the benefit of Mr. Maltboy:  “She’s a gay young widow; and you know what widows are.”

Mr. Maltboy’s knowledge of that species of the human family was extensive and exact.  He nodded, to signify that he knew something of them, and felt forearmed, from that moment, against the charms of Mrs. Frump.

Mrs. Frump told Miss Whedell that she thanked her very much for the compliment, and laughed so prettily, that Fayette Overtop determined to apply some of his grand tests for the discovery of sensible women.

Abandoning the vein of commonplace conversation which he had worked during the five minutes since his arrival, he remarked: